"True success is the only thing that you cannot have unless and until you have offered it to others." Sri Chinmoy

"For truth and duty it is ever the fitting time; who waits until circumstances completely favor his undertaking, will never accomplish anything." Martin Luther

"Success is the child of audacity." Benjamin Disraeli

Today's image: Lost by IrenaS. Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Video: Charlie Rose interviews Marc Andreessen. Highly recommended. An important reminder...always play offense.

"The ideas of the past, although half destroyed, being still powerful, and the ideas which are to replace them being still in process of formation, the modern age represents a period of transition and anarchy." Gustave Le Bon

"Great ideas come into the world as quietly as doves. Perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear the faint fluttering of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. Some will say this hope lies in a nation, others, in a man. I believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history. Each and every one builds for all." Camus

"A competing product, if it is never tried, can't act as a reward creating a conflicting habit. Every spouse knows that." Charles Munger

Today's image: Lorain lighthouse at sunset by ronnie44052. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Way back in 1999 I left CBS and signed on with my first dot com. I was the old media guy (radio, TV, cable) given the privilege of working in new media and learning from a bunch of gifted young players. It was the year everyone was reading and talking about Cluetrain (the site). It was the beginning of my love affair with digital media.

If it's been some time since you've read Cluetrain and especially if you've never picked up on it, please take a moment now to lock it into your bookmarks here. Join me in reading Cluetrain again and do join us if it's your first time around. It reads as fresh as spring rain.

Today's post in tribute to Chris, Doc and David. Thanks guys.

people of earth...

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers." They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.

While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore their ability to deliver genuine knowledge, opting instead to crank out sterile happytalk that insults the intelligence of markets literally too smart to buy it.

However, employees are getting hyperlinked even as markets are. Companies need to listen carefully to both. Mostly, they need to get out of the way so intranetworked employees can converse directly with internetworked markets.

Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.

Read on here. (But don't tap on the glass as it just annoys the animals)

And then he wrote: Dr Dave says "The world is far more interesting than the mainstream media have let on. Blogging is all about discovering just how interesting the world really is." From his post The people vote with their clicks

Bonus: Marc Andreessen makes the case - Benjamin Franklin, blogging role model.

Closed circuit to Chicago Sun-Times: Where's Katie's money?


Legendary Lobel leaving WBZ: New England television sports icon Bob Lobel is leaving CBS' WBZ with a contract buyout, part of the recent company wide budget cutbacks.

I once worked for Bob. He was then and has always remained since a great gentleman. A hard working professional that was never really happy unless the best possible performance had been delivered. Bob delivered more amazing performances than anyone can easily remember, over the last three decades he was always there, a part of many of our most cherished moments of New England victory. During his exemplary career Bob wrote a page turning chapter in the history of sports journalism.

Bob cares about his work, he's deeply passionate and accordingly what he does really matters. Bob will always matter to listeners, to viewers, to colleagues who admire and respect his tireless dedication. He will always mean something special to all of us who, like Bob, truly love the game.

Bob serves as an inspiration to me and a great many others. Thanks Bob. Let the next game begin. Jackie MacMullan covers Bob's story via The Boston Globe here.

Congrats & cheers: Sean Compton joins Tribune as SVP, Programming & Entertainment.

"Don't follow trends, start trends." Frank Capra

"There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; it's what we do with them that's important." Ruth Ross

"The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance." Emerson

Create your own social network for anything - in less than two minutes - for free. That's what Ning now has on offer. Kudos to Marc Andreessen. Get all the details here. Marc has also written a good post about The three kinds of platforms you meet on the internet. Level 1 - Access API (e.g., Flickr, Delicious); Level 2 - Plug-in API (e.g., Facebook); Level 3 - Runtime Environment (e.g., Salesforce.com). A good read here.

Being #1 requires no explanation: As true today as when it was first said by Paul Drew. Kudos to programming ace Brian Kelly and his team. 103.7 KISS FM is again #1 18-34, with double digits no less. While it's only a trend you can bet the farm (without worry) that these guys have a lock on #1. When next you hear or read that the youth market is not listening to radio don't buy it. Brian Kelly and his team are proving this notion to be nonsense. The truth of the matter is too few understand how to put on a show for the youth market and fewer still are getting it done. Brian Kelly is the exception that makes the rule. Teens and the 18-34s will listen when you give them something worth their bandwidth.

Today's image: sometimes the road gets rugged and it's hard to travel on... by dlemieux. The image was one of the top fifty finalists in the Smithsonian Magazine's annual photo contest. Congrats to Diana! Awesome image, thank you very much for sharing.

Courage: The Dan Rather story is sad, very sad. You may read the work of Gold, Reich and Parker, Dan's 32 page complaint here (in PDF, thanks to TMZ). Read the view of Mary Mapes along with 295 comments, and counting here. Read Rather Revolting, the post by Michael Rosenblum with comments here.

Bonus: The 10 rules of Twitter (and how I break every one) - Scobleizer. 62 comments and counting. Rock on Robert! There is only one rule - there are no rules!

Bonus 2: Xobni. Are you an Outlook user? You can not live another day without Xobni. Very cool, very smart. Not open to the public, yet. Chase all the action on their blog here. The thesis is your email usage is a social network - agreed. Genius!

"When the cat and mouse agree, the grocer is ruined." Persian proverb

"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare." Ernie Kovacs

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

The great radio star Fred Allen often gets credit for the Ernie Kovacs quotation above. Heard the attribution to each over the years. One of my favorite Allen lines is "Imitation is the sincerest form of television."

Obvious. Topical. Local.

The thesis first became known to me as one of the "Rules of Three." This one credited to the genius Robert Todd Storz, the wunderkind regarded as the first architect of Top 40 radio. Obvious, topical, local. The Storz Rule of Three. Good content is based in one or more of those three characteristics. On the day job, working with broadcast talent, we spend a considerable amount of time on storytelling issues. Great storytelling begins with good judgment, superior story selection - the right stories told in an engaging, arresting, memorable fashion.

The ultimate destination of the internet is local. Increasingly, our finding is the Storz Rule of Three serves as an excellent standard for online content. It works on and off line to wonderful effect. Obvious. Topical. Local.

Which reminds me of the legendary Bill Stewart and the counsel to talent during his run with the great Gordon McLendon organization. "Be funny, Be informative, or Be quiet."

Why Feedburner is trouble: Dave Winer offers a caution...

"People at Microsoft used to say that Windows isn't ready to ship until Lotus doesn't run. That's not a typo. You'd think it would be the other way around, that a popular operating system would never hold the users of a popular spreadsheet hostage. But it could happen when they have their own spreadsheet and want you to switch. Or if they want everyone to put ads in their feeds. Who would miss a few blogs here and there, don't we all use Blogger anyway (that's one area where they haven't taken over, btw, thankfully)." Dave's entire post here. Scobleizer with comments here. Readers of this humble blog know, I heart Google and trust they will do the right thing.

Googling the FCC: Speaking of Google, Tom Evslin lends his pov to Google's 700Mhz auction offer...

"Two problems with the Google offer: at&t and Verizon hate it and it probably would result in the 700MHz auction bringing in somewhat less money (immediately) for the treasury than an alternative which would encourage the telcos to bid." Read Tom's post with back story here. Agree with Tom on this one. Bravo Tom, good writing!

What future for PBS? Michael Rosenblum writes...

"So the question become instead, what is the best role for PBS in a country where all the rest of TV is commercial and we pretty much refuse to fund it. PBS must contend itself with beggaring really, to corporations and communities. This is distasteful and a disgrace to our country, but that is the way it is at the moment. With their limited resources, and with the democratization of video exploding - and no major network really paying all that much attention, I think that the notion of publisher of quality (from ‘us out here with the cameras’) is a unique niche that PBS could quickly occupy. No one else is doing it."

Bravo Michael! Read his post with comments here.

Bonus: The Caffeinated Librarian. Lonesome Music. My thanks to the Blogger gang for the tips.

Congrats & cheers: Madison's own uber-cool Ben Sidran on his Talking Jazz box set. Highly recommended. More info here. Steve Coll named prexy of the New America Foundation. Marc Andreessen on the sale of his company, Opsware, to HP for $1.6 Bil. Vinny Brown and his WBLS crew posting #2 25-54 in the new book ahead of #3 WLTW! Jeff Siegel named VP, Home Entertainment (Americas) for FremantleMedia. Matthew Weiner on the debut of his very cool new original series Mad Men (AMC).

"You cannot save your way into a transition. You have to learn how to grow top line revenues." Ann Moore

The CEO of Time Inc gets it, Ann knows what she's talking about. Read the Rafat Ali interview with Ann here. Kudos Rafat, good job. Here's more of Moore...

"Here is the strategy. First, build the best of product. Differentiate it. Second, build the big audience and by that I mean you need partnerships with everyone. Then third, worry about monetizing it, but you got to have a big audience to make money on the web because the CPMs are low. I have said this publicly: The magazine models is a beautiful model because you got high margins; two revenue streams, the consumer pays and the advertiser pays; beautiful cash flow, you get the money up front. The average reader of Sports Illustrated delivers about $118 to the bottom line in Time Inc. The average very engaged user of SI.com can generate about $5 in advertising contribution. I need many more online viewers to equal one magazine reader. That is why you have to go for big volume and that is why you got to have partnerships. You do not do exclusives with anybody."

Enjoyed a very interesting conversation with some west coast colleagues yesterday. One of the subjects was "value added" and it brought to mind a story about a great promotion involving a Chicago retailer, a cookbook, and a quarter. Think you know what a great sales promotion is? My thought is you will enjoy reading this story about a sales call with my mentor the legendary Kevin Sweeney. It was the day I learned a valuable lesson about promotion, all the details are here in this previous post.

Congrats & cheers: Pat O'Neill and his Magic 98 team on making a difference. "The Concert for Gilda's Club" is on, more info here. Local, local, local.

Trade secret: Want to do something special on your breakfast show, something that will get listeners/viewers involved and really light up the phones? You should also feature this topic on your station breakfast show blog. Behold the response Eric Zorn got when he took a moment to engage his readers and struck the responsive cord...Gone but not (quite) forgotten. Note the first reader comment was from Sept 05, the last posted May 07. Local, local, local. Works 100% of the time. Works with all demos, all formats. One of our EU clients, a rocker, ran it as "Bring out your dead" to amazing result. Off the charts but still in our hearts. It's fun and it works!

Eric's list and the comments of his readers brought back a rush of memories from my Chicago days. A late night joint, Mel Markon's, was mentioned, it was special to me back in the day...Lee Harris, John Wetherbee and I had many a fun post-midnight dinner there, a place packed with character and characters.

Bonus: Marc Andreessen on How to hire the best people you've ever worked with. Marc makes the case for three key attributes: drive, curiosity, ethics. Recommended. Check out Marc's writing here.