"The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them." Mark Twain

"Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data." John Naisbitt

"He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!" Horace

Today's image: Childhood by Thomas Hawk. Outstanding. Thank you for sharing.

Go Big or Go Home: Business advice from Bono. From an article headed "New U2 album delayed till 2009"...

“We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein and we don’t want to stop,” Bono says on the band’s website. “It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we’ve found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there’s more priceless stuff to be found?”

Read the entire post by Tim Walker @ Hoover's Business Insight Zone. Kudos, Tim. Well done.

Bonus: Malcolm Gladwell - Video - How you hire the right person. Highly recommended.

Eaten alive: Giles Coren, restaurant critic for the Times in London, is known to engage others via email. His latest email rant to his subeditors is a classic. Read "I have never ended on an unstressed syllable" via the Guardian here.

Social media: Find Your Social Media Score - 12 Questions for marcom teams self-test here. Thanks to John Bell @ OgilvyPR.

Bill & Jerry: The first spot in the new Microsoft campaign is out and getting mixed reviews. It's been reported Jerry is being paid $10 mil to star as the talent in the $300 mil campaign. The 90 second spot left me cold. I'll await the considered opinions of Lew Lazare, Tom Asacker and Joseph Jaffe. In the meantime, you decide. Watch it here. [Related: Microsoft tries to explain Seinfeld ad - Deborah Gage, Microsoft Works to Perfect Windows Vista - Steve Lohr, First Microsoft/Seinfeld Ad Bombs - Sam Gustin]

Image: Wolf vs. Sheep by Hugh MacLeod. Bravos Hugh! Thank you for sharing.

"In the absence of money, we'll have to make do with talent." Sir Michael Balcon

"There are no rules in film-making. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness." Frank Capra

"Studio executives are intelligent, brutally overworked men and women who share one thing in common with baseball managers: They wake up every morning of the world with the knowledge that sooner or later they're going to get fired." William Goldman

Lewis Lazare writes about the iPhone "...we can only tip our hat to Apple for having successfully executed one of the most impressive buzz campaigns in marketing history" Read Lew's column here. Those in the know tell me the AT&T connect is s l o w. Scobleizer and son are first in line at the Palo Alto store, follow the action here.

The King and the heiress = 3.2 mil: Biggest audience of 2007 for the King but fails to make the man's top forty shows of all time. Perspective: 14 years ago, the Al Gore v Ross Perot NAFTA debate captured 16.8 mil, that King show remains the record high of basic cable.

Congrats & cheers: DDB Chicago for bringing home the Lions and to Pete Stacker the great voice of the winners, DDB's Real Men of Genius for Bud Light. Steve Newcomb and his Powerset team out of stealth mode. David Garland named Time Out Chicago publisher. Vinnie Malhotra promoted to EP ABC News' weekend. Pownce. WBA Wunderkind Michelle Vetterkind.

Photo: Rose by
Fred Winston
Beautiful image,
thanks Fred!

"Baby boomers and members of Generation X were like dogs - treat them right and they will be loyal. But members of this latest generation, Generation Y, are more like cats. They just go where the money is." Linsey Perry

Congrats & Cheers: Jeff Zucker to be named chief executive of NBC Universal. The boy wonder deserves the promotion. LA Times story by Meg James here. Yahoo takes the lid off of Panama this week. Randy Thomas was the voice actor heard during last night's halftime show - she goes into the record books as the first woman to vo the half (she has also been the voice of six Academy Awards shows).

CBS SportsLine has put all the Super Bowl ads in one location here. Congrats to Phil Duncan his great voice gave him away in his one line on-camera role as the boss (Pierce come in here) in the Salesgenie.com spot. Lewis Lazare reviews the bidding and declares Bud & Coke the ad bowl winners. Could not agree more Lew, bravo! Read his take here. The Letterman with Oprah bumper was brilliant!

Fred Winston is blogging here. Kudos Fred!

Wise words of the week: Tom Peters...

"You are in a losing battle unless you are totally, perpetually, viciously and vigorously at war with the tendencies toward control, stifling, bureaucracy, over planning, over systems, too many metrics, etc."

Tony Perkins writes Part II of his "confession", Avoiding the Bubble Blues...

1. Keep your eye on the money because cash is king.
2. Focus your venture money on overcoming risks.
3. Stay away from snappy people and Web 2.0 frat rats.
4. Customers (and prospects) are everything.
5. Bring in the design experts.
6. Base your PR strategy on the principle of attraction rather than promotion.
7. Do it for the passion. Not the money.

Tony's counsel comes from his diary about running two startups in the newly fashionable dotcom times. More here.