"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has got there first, and is waiting for it." Terry Pratchett

"I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained." Walt Disney

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." Doug Larson

Today's image: Looking Downtown by James Neeley. Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

As I was saying...

The press of daily affairs has been such that there has simply been no time for blogging.

Please accept my apologies and my sincere thanks. Your emails and other contact have been encouraging. The conjecture, priceless (e.g., Maybe he's dead?). In answer to many, let me say all here is exceptionally good, never better.

On with the show.

Stuff the cool kids are talking about: In the spirit of Madtown hero Dave Winer (we locals claim he is only taking a really long extended holiday in Berkeley) let me provide some jumps. To connect the dots here, it was Dave who famously said "People come back to places that send them away."

Flogos - Promotion and NTR magic.

Michael Rosenblum - You need to be reading this guy. He's only reinventing video. One of the last big things he invented was for Al Gore, Current. Michael is brilliant and playing at the top of his game. Check out the writing and videos on his blog. Repeat, daily.

Yahoo! Jerry Yang stepping down creates one of the biggest potential game-changing moments in the online world. The big two could become the big three in the USA. The early buzz and Vegas odds say News Corp prexy Peter Chernin would be the ideal successor. As ever, Kara Swisher has the story covered, including review of the suspects, via ATD here.

Moms v Motrin: Over the weekend we witnessed an interesting real-time experiment in social media. Moms took on Big Pharma using Twitter, YouTube, blogs, other SM tools. Motrin never had a chance, the moms won. It's an object lesson. Grammer Girl offers a good overview, What People Forget About Twitter here. How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign by Michael Learmonth and Rupal Parekh via AdAge here. Related videos, check other blog posts via BuzzFeed. #motrinmoms tag on Twitter search here. Here's proof positive the Motrin meme has achieved escape velocity, the parody has begun. Check out this video mashup, Getting a boob job seems to be in fashion, via YouTube here. Finally, what's your Twitter strategy?

Philly fresh: Mel Taylor, who makes his living by helping media create local online revenues, checks in to advise the new site devoted to live music and local bands is alive in beta. Check it out here. Congrats and cheers to Mel and all involved. Are you reading Mel's blog? Jump on over here.

My bookmarks - Not sure if you are aware but in the left column is my running collection of bookmarks (my del. icio. us). These are items I'm reading, sharing with clients and friends. Two stand outs this early morning: Steve Gillmor's timely piece on Microcasting merits your attention. Timesman David Carr knocks the cover clean off the ball with his writing on dead tree guys firing top talent. A very relevant and disturbing trend in media.

Back with more tomorrow. Thanks, appreciate you stopping by.

Image: Business is change by Hugh MacLeod. Bravo Hugh & thanks!

"One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it...A change leader sees change as an opportunity. A change leader looks for change, knows how to find the right changes, and knows how to make them effective both outside the organization and inside it. To make the future is highly risky. It is less risky, however, than not to try to make it. A goodly proportion of those attempting to will not succeed. But predictably, no one else will." Peter Drucker

"There are always two parties - the party of the past and the party of the future, the establishment and the movement." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Agility is great, but if a company is no more than agile, it will be a perpetual follower - and in the age of revolution even fast followers find few spoils. Companies fail to create the future not because they fail to predict it but because they fail to imagine it. It is curiosity and creativity they lack, not perspicuity. So it is vitally important that you understand the distinction between 'the future' and the 'unimagined,' between knowing what's next and imagining what's next." Gary Hamel

In my salad days as a music director and talent at RKO's WFYR in Chicago I learned an important lesson. Having worked hard to earn the respect of my superiors I wanted a promotion to program director. Going on the record with my station and corporate bosses seemed the right approach. When word reached RKO president Dwight Case he called and said "Once you train or recommend a qualified replacement we'll consider promoting you."

Succession planning is difficult but important work. It remains the single most vexing task at every level of the organization. The identification, recruitment and retention of creative people should always be on the manager's agenda. The time to look for people is before you need them. Until you have found replacements for every member of your team identification should remain a daily priority. Begin the recruitment process after identification and before the job offer. Cultivate the relationship while getting the book on your candidate and selling the person on your organization. Having identified, vetted and cultivated the best candidates you will be in a position to act as soon as circumstances dictate or needs require.

In the near term this is months of thankless hard work. In the long term you and your organization will be ready for the inevitable change you can not now imagine. One evening our very talented and effective sales manager gave me his notice. No one saw it coming. His father-in-law had developed serious health issues and his wife had convinced him that their immediate relo to be with her father was the only acceptable course. We were riding high in April and seriously shot down in May.

Hiring is a process not an event.

When you begin looking for the best person the day your top performer gives notice the odds are against you. The pressure is on to hire. You have lost any opportunity to cultivate a relationship. The majority of the time you will be speed hiring. Chatting up strangers from scratch, hoping for the best. Often you will "settle" for the person available rather than the ideal person you have not had the time to find.

Write a detailed description of the ideal candidate.

More than simply skill sets. Who is the ideal person? Attitudes, character, values, beliefs, dreams. It is sometimes easy to overlook the obvious. Once, under the gun to hire in a couple of weeks, we went after a great talent that was in the southwest. We brought him and his wife up to Chicago during a beautiful September weekend. We had picture perfect Chamber of Commerce weather. Everyone got along and had a terrific time. The offer was made and accepted before the couple left for the airport. Things went very well until winter arrived. At the company Christmas party his wife joked that they had finally gone to Marshall Fields and bought their first ever "heavy winter coats." Six weeks later our great talent was asking me to release him from his contract. I had failed to do my homework. The performer's wife hated the cold Chicago winter weather. It turned out he was not the ideal candidate and it was my mistake. The big market, big call letters and big contract were less important than the weather. Performers tend to do their best work when they are happy. Each performer has their own unique and very personal set of "be happy" requirements.

Look for people that want to come home.

One of the lessons learned in retaining the best people is to hire people who have some reason to be in love with your market or, in the least, your neighborhood (e.g., upper midwest, southeast, et al). Over the years there were some gifted performers that we knew could not be hired away to any other town, we worried only about losing them to the guys across the street. They had their own reasons but they had no interests whatsoever in living any place else. This also applies to folks who believe your market is somehow very special to them but they are working elsewhere. Perhaps the most effective job ads we ever ran always used the name of our town in the headline (a trade secret we still use, it works!)

COME HOME TO CHICAGO
We have an excellent opportunity for the right person.

Sometimes we find people who vacation every year in our town. They may be coming home to family for the holidays and sometimes we discover they just have dreams of living in the market. No matter, these are the people you want on your team. You don't have to sell the market, later others will have a harder time selling them on leaving their market and you. Start by looking for people who believe you are living in the neighborhood if not the city of their dreams.

NEXT: Part Two - Birthday cards, timing and term sheets

Doing the right thing: Creative Commons is conducting a special two-week iSummit 2007 Scholarship Funding Campaign. The goal is $50,000. Please join me in giving what you can to this important cause. More info here. My thanks to Lawrence Lessig for the heads up.

Congrats & cheers: AllThingsD debuts. Kudos to Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Bonus: We spend too much time hiding illness - "I ain't a pretty boy no more." Roger Ebert writes from the heart here. Thanks to Dan Kelley for the tip.

Bonus 2: Christopher Lydon talks with Dr Dave Weinberger about Dr Dave's very cool new book Everything is Miscellaneous. Highly recommended. Check out the podcast here. Bravo Christopher! Kudos to Dr Dave!