Martin Atkins

"It's not a problem if 20,000 people 'illegally' download your music. It's a problem if they don't."

"There are no airbags in the music industry. When it goes wrong YOUR head is going through the windshield."

"Technical proficiency is a dead-end. There will always be someone better. Instead focus on diversifying your skill set."

All three of our quotes today are from Martin Atkins. Martin, an accomplished entrepreneur, is a celebrated musician, author and teacher that we can all learn something from. As it happens, you can download his most recent book for free, here (offer expires October 31, 2011). Let me also encourage you to read Greg Kot's article SXSW 2011: Martin Atkins throws blueberry muffins at music industry via Chicago Tribune, here.

What's new about news: Michael Rosenblum offers his latest post on what's not happening in the 6:30 news wars. Why TV News is so VERY TERRIBLE (and why ratings keep dropping), here.

Good read: Insights with Sir Martin Sorrell by Simon Rogers. From Google's latest Think Quarterly, The Innovation issue - here - other good reads also in this issue, worth the jump.

Bravos: GMail team, very clever and a solid initiative to prompt Google account signups. Email intervention.

Google+ tumblr and Spotify are three of this summer's biggest hits. You may find me on g+ via my Google Profile link (in the left column of this page). NEW: started a blog about Google+, here.

Bonus: Kevin Kelly is suggesting the future of the internet can be reduced to six verbs.

Screening

Interacting

Sharing

Flowing

Accessing

Generating

My sense is Kevin's thesis is spot-on and simply brilliant. The following video of Kevin's NExTWORK talk about those six verbs is well worth your bandwidth. Bravos to kk.

Where ever attention flows

money will follow

"The whole point of any medium, where it is video or writing or painting or film is to expand our thinking and expose us to new ideas, not repeat the same ones over and over ad infinitum...Tell me what I don't know. Tell me what I never even thought about before." Michael Rosenblum

" For it to be a content business, content people have to run the company. The business has to be obsessed with what it’s consumers want and be able to give them that and much more. In fact then need to give them things that they didn’t know they wanted. Content consumers ultimately need to be surprised and fully expect their sources of information to be smarter than they are about the topics they are reading or viewing." Larry Kramer

"It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them." Eric Schmidt

Today's image: Leaning Tulip by Fred Winston. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Let's suppose you launched a business in November of 2008 and in April of 2010 your business had achieved a value of approx $1.35 billion. Let us say your revenues that Spring were on pace to make $1 billion in sales faster than any other business in history. Let's agree that in October of 2010 your business was operating in over 150 markets in the USA, over 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America and you had over 35 million registered users.

Now...
What if?

What if in the Fall of 2010 you were offered $3 billion to sell that business and then weeks later you're approached by another suitor who offers you over $5 billion to sell?

What if your 2011 projections indicated you were in good shape, pacing to deliver between $3 and $4 billion in revenues. Would you dare change anything?

It's the true story of Groupon and here's how they've answered those two what if questions...

They said no. They were not interested in selling (Yahoo! and Google were the rumored buyers)

and

They decided while business was good it was time to change things, invent another product and introduce a different business model.

Imagine that.

A company that's about two and a half years old which is on track to produce revenue equal to about 21% of US radio's total revenue in 2010 (using BIA/Kelsey estimate of $14.1 bil, and $3 bil rev assumption for Groupon) and instead of being laser focused on tweaking and optimizing their existing business model they've decided to also change up their own game, innovate and launch another business.

Before you continue reading, please watch the following video.



Clearly, Groupon and its competitors (over 100 similar US sites) are having an impact on local ad spending.

Allow me to suggest that Groupon Now has the potential of changing the local direct game yet again because its value proposition is fundamentally different. Groupon is putting the third screen to work and doing it in real-time, they've entered the brave new world of the mobile pure play.

"Mobile is huge for Groupon...I believe we could see us doing 50 percents of deals sold/purchased in the next couple of years" said Michael Shim, Groupon VP Mobile Partnerships. As eMoney writer Tricia Duryee reports "Mobile, along with social and local, will be one of the largest drivers for Groupon's deals business over the next few years...Shim said the service has also exceeded expectations, with more than 1,000 merchants already signed up to offer real-time deals. 'We’ve been inundated with demand. Groupon Now is about local discovery. What can I find around me?…We are just getting going on where we think it will take our business.'" [ref]

Introduced last week and more than 1,000 merchants already signed up. Pop quiz: what's your best take rate story? Is it a compelling one-sheet being used on the street and on your site?

My sense is there are strategic issues involved. Here are four to consider.

1. The practical notion of "Local" is being redefined. We're moving from the traditional big/generalized (e.g., DMA, SMSA, US Census block code) to the new small/personalized (think GPS or exact position within three meters). A new marketing grammar, a new sense of place, will be one of the second or third-order effects in the growing adoption of location-based services.

2. New players want in, others want bigger local shares. Local has not been 100% owned and operated by the usual suspects (i.e., the traditional incumbents including print, broadcast and out of home) for a while now but it's getting ever more competitive. Local and hyper-local is where everyone wants to be next. Everyone includes Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Pandora, and [insert the name of an advertising or ad-supported company here].

3. New rules of engagement are emerging and with them new expectations are being created. The metrics used in buying and evaluating local media will likely change and affect some share of local ad spend. From buys based upon audience estimates and proof of performance (run as ordered?) to registered users and completed transactions (products/services sold). Moreover, performance pressure will increase. From flights evaluated over days and weeks to flights evaluated over hours in real-time. In this new always-on connected world it's certainly possible that price and item copy will be placed, judged on actual in-the-moment purchase behaviors. Impulse purchasing is exploited, solutions defaulting to mobile (i.e., Help, I'm hungry or I'm bored). As ever, the research tool preferred by local retailers continues to be the cash register.

4. Creating awareness without generating completed transactions will become less and less attractive to buyers, especially those local merchants provided more performance-based options. Branding or pure image driven advertising will become more difficult to justify. John Wanamaker gets credit for the famous adage "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half" but as AdWeek's Michael Wolff wrote just yesterday on the subject of digital marketing and TV's upfront week "...15 years into our ability to measure the absolute effectiveness of the way and the methods by which we sell something, and, still, TV advertising, which measures nothing, guarantees no sales, offers no data, registers no interest, quantifies no desire, provides no follow-up, and which no sentient being watches anyway, is making more money than ever before. Waste works." [ref]

While I appreciate Michael's point of view there remains major work to be done on the metrics used in the buying and selling of digital media. Serious debate continues and we have yet to reach a consensus relative to accepted definitions and measures. Bravos to IAB for their ongoing efforts. Further, while Steve Jobs continues using TV to sell his iPhones and iPads I'll remain bullish on the potential of TV advertising done right. We'll stipulate here that doing TV right is not at all easy and most don't do it right, however, Apple stands out as a good example of just how powerful TV advertising can be. Target, the merchant, is another exemplary TV advertiser. There is, imo, a significant share of the $65.9 billion in annual US TV ad spend [2010 cit] that is pure waste.

"At every crossroads on the path that leads
to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men
to guard the past."
Maurice Maeterlinck

What's a broadcaster to do?

To those working in radio, those progeny of the first generation wireless, the true real-time media pioneers, let me offer five suggestions. As well, let me encourage you to share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions via comments here below.

1. Game it up. At your next sales meeting, play the Groupon Now! video and give sellers the following homework assignment. "How do we pitch Big Frank? What is our value proposition that will blow Big Frank's face off? How will we help him to fill his empty tables?" Make it a pitch competition. On pitch day encourage brutally candid discussion. Vote first, second and third place winners. Let the sales team and a good representation of staff not on the sales team participate in the voting. For those already deep into "Deal of the Day" and other discount coupon strategies, how are you measuring up? Would Big Frank buy your offer over Groupon Now? Do you have a video that demonstrates how your program works? A video that clearly articulates value that the prospective client can understand? Does your value proposition match or exceed the one offered in the Groupon Now video? You must have and present a compelling, engaging story. Remember Leo Burnett's counsel on great advertising being three messages: "Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it."

2. Work your network. Start a serious conversation with others. What's happening with Groupon, LivingSocial, et al in your market and others? What are your colleagues (and clients) hearing, learning and doing? What's the RAB's best thinking on this? Take the advice of Dr. Jeffrey Cole and ensure that your learning curve is consistently steeper than your action curve. "You have to be paying attention, learning and watching." Do your homework. Be prepared for your client's phone call asking you "What do you know about Groupon?"

3. Make something happen. Get in the game. Take measured action and experiment. Be willing to fail and learn how to fail faster. Be agile. Embrace iterative development. Take the winner of your pitch competition (see #1 above) for a test drive. Carefully study the results. Revisit your design and fine-tune or blow up and move on to your second place winner. Repeat. Move on to your third place winner. Hold another pitch competition.

4. Give your team a better chance to win. Be the best that radio can be. The anecdotal evidence would suggest 7 of every 8 potential merchant deals are rejected by Groupon. Can you imagine a radio sales manager failing to approve 7 out of 8 orders for new business? Even if it turns out not to be true let's admit it...7 of every 8 being rejected makes a killer urban ad legend for Groupon. If what Groupon is doing is working it's working, in part, because they do qualify their clients and work within a creative framework designed to optimize performance on the Groupon platform. Radio should consider taking a more pro-active, aggressive approach in working with clients to develop creative that plays into radio's inherent strengths and utilize smart scheduling of that creative to maximize the chances of producing best results for the client.

5. Check out what Fred Jacobs and the digital ninjas of Jacobs Media have to say about all of this. They're offering a good read. Make the jump to the always informative jacoBLOG here.

Keep in mind Groupon was Andrew Mason's second attempt at using the platform he developed. His first, ThePoint, failed to produce the results he expected but he didn't give up, he moved on to invent Groupon. Now he's inventing Groupon 2.0 What's your team up to?

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett

Footnote: What did Google really want? My guess is Google - if they really did make an offer - already having the superior tech skills, wanted Groupon's creative staff and their local sales team. It would have been a very savvy accretive acquisition in their local strategy. They have since launched Google Offers.

Previously: My post about Groupon from late last year: Nobody likes it but the audience.

Finally, a must-see video and a book recommendation. Thanks for stopping by.

Bonus: TED: Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles."











Recommended:

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser.
Amazon info.

Reviewed by Jesse Walker: The Facebook Friend in the Plastic Bubble

"Fear is the mortal enemy of creativity." Alex Bogusky

"Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest." Eric Hoffer

"When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something...That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things." Steve Jobs

Today's image: Bart1 by Banksy. Great work. Thank you for sharing.

Minding the Gap

For those of us working in measured media, we are living in times of incredible disruption and, it seems to me, equally incredible opportunity. The question needing attention is how do we make the best of our present circumstances? How do we most effectively navigate the gap, from our past analog successes and through today's rough waters to the brave new digital frontier?

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein has provided us with an excellent guidebook. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Amzn). Her writing does an outstanding job of helping us to understand how technology can trigger dramatic and unimaginable change. Let me also suggest a fresh reading of Marshall McLuhan. Stephanie McLuhan and David Staines have produced an exceptional book pulling together McLuhan lectures and interviews in Understanding Me with a forward by the great American writer Tom Wolfe (Amzn)

In giving my talks on social media this year I have mentioned some conventional radio station jobs (e.g., the overnight, midday and part-time weekend disc jockey) using the metaphor of 15th century scribes (inspired by the brilliant Michael Rosenblum). Getting a job working for the church as a scribe was about as good as it could get way back in the day. It was the ultimate job security, working for the rock solid employer of choice. And then, everything changed. Working as a liner reading announcer now seems an anomaly, an occupational accident of pure chance. In the not too distant future winning a bar bet suggesting that people once made a wage good enough to support a family and buy a home by simply playing music (and little more than reading formatted remarks four times an hour) will be, well, practically impossible.

My father was a musician and did some work in radio. When TV came along the musicians union told its members that their radio jobs would be safe. When it was suggested that radio would replace live musical performances by playing recordings - the same phonograph records available for purchase by the listeners - the union said "Radio intends to play the same records that the public can buy and play whenever they wish? It will never work." To my knowledge, there are no musicians on staff at any radio stations today. By the way, my dad reinvented himself. He decided to end his successful career as a musician and band leader, he took a flyer and went off to play the records. He never looked back. Johnny Martin had the audacity to ignore the conventional wisdom and the accepted rules of the day, he helped to put on the air the first black owned radio station in the nation, WERD in Atlanta. It happened this month in 1949.

Don't Keep Calm and Carry On

The important challenge of broadcast managers today is minding the gap, building a bridge to the digital future and that's a mission that will require first creating a magnet, a culture that fosters innovation. Broadcasters must attract the best ideas.

While there is certainly a lot of talk about the challenges and problems of our current situation there is far too little discussion and resources focused on actual solutions. Too often activity is being mistaken for progress. There's not enough implementation, experimentation, effective execution. We must adopt a dead serious bias for action. Discovering solution sets should be the proper focus most deserving of our attention. Please permit me to again say ... It's not about getting better, it's about getting different. It's all about shifting focus from the numerator to the denominator.

As it happens we have an app for that today. Edison Media's Tom Webster recently presented a wonderful webinar - A Small, Good Thing - on behalf of the Conclave. You may access a recording of Tom's webinar, here. Word to the wise - put Tom's blog, BrandSavant, in your reader, it's here. [FD: I serve on the board of the Conclave. Let me also thank and credit moleitau for his killer image shown here above left]

Bonus: Cool kid Alex Bogusky has some good writing on offer - Creative directors are in the business of professional insanity - well worth your bandwidth, here.

Wait, there's more: Still feel the need to read? Check out what I've been reading via delicious, here.

"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.

"Progress is made by correcting the mistakes resulting from the making of progress." Claude Gibb

"I don't care about what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes." Socrates

"I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life." Ayn Rand

Today's image: Creativity by Proverbs 31:10. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. The photographer's taken name is a reference to the verse "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." (King James)

"How did we get here?"
Nine keys to success
in three steps

The question you and your team need to discuss daily.

First, do your homework.

The beginning of understanding is perspective. An acceptance of ignorance. A dedication to discovery.

Robert D. Kaplan is a fine writer because he sincerely appreciates the present within relation to its past. His work benefits from the incredible benefits of deep context. A keen observer of the present he understands he is jumping into a story already in progress. A story with a past relevant and critical to grasping the present.

Please permit me to suggest a practical guide. We use this construct on the day job and it consistently produces excellent results. Trade secret: this process has helped us to avoid repeating serious mistakes of the past. This helps clear the "fog" often found in turnarounds.

1. Develop a history. Using all resources available construct a storyline, a timeline of the past.

2. Invite discussion. Post and distribute the timeline. Ask "What happened?" Solicit insight (e.g., "2005 was our best sales year. Why? What made that happen? What did we do then that we are not now doing? Who were the players that made that happen?")

3. Connect the dots. Develop a story, a narrative, for how we got to where we are today.

4. Proof the story. Again, invite discussion. Post and distribute the story. Solicit editorial (e.g., "Please review and correct, adding anything we missed, suggest any changes needed to get this right.")

5. Reflect. What lessons have we learned? What worked? What failed? Why?

6. Decide. How do we best move forward knowing what we know now? This is the most difficult key. Be decisive! Set your course. Commit without reservation. Burn your bridges behind you, set fire to the boats on the shore. No turning back. Forward!

7. Involve. Share the story. Get everyone involved, focused, on the same page. Clearly communicate expectations and consequences. Set high standards. Invite, encourage feedback.

8. Execute. Put your plan into action. Second most difficult key. Move forward. Measure. Discuss. Learn. Tweak. Learn. Cut from the herd those not performing. (Howard is closing 600 US Starbucks stores that are not performing, he's right)

9. Reward. Recognize success, celebrate achievement. Catch people doing something right and make a big deal out of it. Recognition matters most and yields the best ROI.

Second, keep a tight accounting of what's happening, what's not happening and what you are doing to influence the action. Measure constantly. Discuss daily. Keep asking the most important question: WHY? Think!

Third, listen carefully to the lessons of your ongoing discovery. Employ the advantages learned in the study of marketplace history, past and present. A better execution of a repeated "obvious" solution, one earlier failed, is rarely the most productive course. Be willing to admit the harsh possibility - It's not the execution that was bad, the solution, no matter how powerful or obvious the notion, may not be an effective option. Study the attributes of the winners. Discover what they have in common. True story: In one case we found the market leaders (historically) all used out of home media more than any other marketing channel. We directed, counter-intuitively (our local agency said it was a really bad idea and it was, in fact, a poorly ranked out of home market), all of our available resources into the out of home channel and gained significant share almost overnight. Don't fight the flow. Study, discover, learn and respect the nature of market flows. As the great, gifted team of Charlie Boone and Roger Erickson taught me "Know the territory."

Measure > Discuss > Reflect > Decide > Involve > Execute > Reward

Classic counsel: Legendary programming and marketing ace Paul Drew "Give them reasons to stay longer and reasons to come back." One of the top ten "best practices" lessons provided to our interactive clients (also voted by our most successful interactive clients as one of their top ten "most valuable" lessons learned).

Signal vs Noise: What's your favorite Twitter feed to follow (and why?). Thanks to Sarah Perez for the tip.

Bonus: Michael Rosenblum Learning To Live With Infinity Bravos, Michael!

More Grapes Argentina: San Felipe, Malbec, Roble 2007. Nine months in American oak. (Thanks to Whole Foods for the tip). Pascual Toso, Malbec, 2007. Two Mendoza reds under $10. Great values.

Congrats & cheers: reboot10. Nadja Pass offers Freedom is. The talented media performer Cara Carriveau joins WTMX as midday personality.

"To escape criticism - do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." Elbert Hubbard

"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously." G.K. Chesterton

"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant." Horace

Today's image: Liberty by shinyobject. Great shooting. Thanks for sharing.

Wayback machine: Michael Crichton made a prediction in 1993. He wrote a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus" wherein he predicted the death of mass media, to wit: "...American media produce a product of very poor quality...It's flashy but it's basically junk." Crichton suggested future consumers would crave high quality information and be willing to pay for it. Jack Shafer revisits the writing via Slate here.

Remembering radio: A lot of chatter about radio this week. Here are a few items that may help to put things into perspective.

"Radio is Doomed"
Headline from Look magazine
[April 26, 1949, p. 66]

"Any law forcing a sameness of radio, forcing a programming common denominator, acts as a protection to the talentless, a shield for the lazy, a haven for the idea thief, a legal shelter and sanction for the mediocre."

Gordon McLendon
[As quoted, Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio by Ronald Garay]

"I have never bought a radio station for other than one reason: because I believed I could improve its programming and make it a success...Our philosophy in deciding whether to buy a certain station in a certain market has always been: Is there some program service of utility to a large enough group here that is either (a) not now being provided or (b) not being provided as well as we can provide it?"

Gordon McLendon
[ As quoted, The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format by David MacFarland]

"There were people doing things, both commercially and noncommercially, that were very exciting and wonderfully off the wall. And at times awful. But it was based on risk-taking, something that is antithetical to almost any radio now."
Larry Yurdin

"...a new kind of novel that he writes nightly. The mike is his pen and paper. His audience and their knowledge of the daily events of the world provide his characters, his scenes and moods."
Marshall McLuhan
[speaking of the show by WOR talent Jean Shepherd]

"I like disc jockeys that are essentially groupies, who love their music and take it home with them and are involved with it to a degree that approaches fanaticism."
Tom Donahue

"All research does is give you answers to questions you ask...It's up to you to know that you're asking the right questions...Far too often, research is used to be noncreative."
John Parikhal

Bonus: Video impresario Michael Rosenblum is on a mission. One you should be paying attention to...

"...when you walk into the New York Times, every single person in the building, from the receptionist to the publisher knows how to read and write. They also have a word processing machine on their desktop. If they get an idea, they are encouraged to write. Adam Liptak, corporate lawyer for the paper often also reports on legal matters for the paper. It is a hive of literacy and creativity.

If you walk into a TV network, however, it is more akin to walking into an insurance company.

Row after row of cubicles and fluorescent lighting. Industrial carpeting.

And most remarkably, a staff that by and large are both illiterate in the medium in which they are working, and also denied access to the tools of creativity."

Read the entire post A Commitment to Literacy here. Bravos, Michael! In my experience you can learn just about everything you need to know about a media operation by its lobby, offices and the way they answer the phone, direct your call.

Gillmor Gang: Steve chats up the FriendFeed co-founders. Bret Taylor and Paul Buchheit submit to the whims of the Gang. [MP3 audio w/comments] Kudos, Steve. Well done, Bret & Paul.

Congrats & cheers: Steve Harris joins ESPN Radio as Senior Director of Audio Content.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend. See you next week with a brand new show.

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." James Joyce

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"I'm forever raising the high bar and breaking my neck to clear it." John Kluge

Today's image: Surrealist Twist by AndyKapped. Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

What's the second most misunderstood word in the business lexicon? Innovation, so says branding and marketing ace Tom Asacker. Tom's right about that and right again in declaring the most misunderstood word to be brand. We can all learn something from Tom. Here's the first part of Tom's definition of innovation...

"Innovation is the successful introduction of a new idea that results in a more desirable customer experience, and..."

Complete that sentence and get Tom's insight on this much talked about (and too often misunderstood) subject, read his latest article The Enemy of Innovation, here's the jump. Highly recommended. Bravos, Tom!

"Nothing stops technology, nothing."

That's one important lesson learned from my dear friend, mentor and former partner the legendary Larry Bentson. The company that started in the motion picture exhibition business (you may know that as the movie theater or cinema trade) got into radio when radio was to kill the movies, then into TV when TV was to kill movies and radio, then Cable when Cable TV was to be the certain death of movies, radio and broadcast TV. The day I joined the firm they still owned every one of those businesses, had for decades and everything was successful or very successful.

Our mission was to stay ahead of the curve. The daily question being...What's next? The objective at hand...keep the plates we have spinning, add new plates.

We built a video retailing chain (remember, they were going to kill theaters, TV and Cable), got serious about building a telephony-communications firm (the phone is the future!), acquired the largest teleport in North America (sat delivery would soon be king), started a software development company (computers will be ubiquitous and they'll need software), launched a leisure services company (marinas could benefit from professional management including market research) and a bunch of other stuff. The point of this story is staying current is really important. Larry used to say when people asked why he got into so many competing and varied businesses "We're basically paranoid about losing everything and like to keep the portfolio diversified. We like to get into new things early."

As the partner responsible for marketing and sales let me say it was big fun. Over a dozen learning curves. Learned a bunch but the key take away comes back to Larry's one liner "Nothing stops technology, nothing." Getting a grasp of this, a deep understanding of what's happening around you is powerful. Early indications can be very important. The guy who is living on the leading edge of TV news, no...make that the future of video journalism is Michael Rosenblum. Please, come with me, see the future here. Thank you Michael, well done.

The real story: The one you won't read anywhere else. The back story on how the Clear Channel deal came around. Heidi N. Moore has done a fine job dishing the detail via WSJ.com, check it out here. Kudos to Heidi!

Bonus: Harve Alan

More future, more often: Eric Savitz provides excellent coverage of the week's single coolest event - The Churchill Club's Top Ten Tech Trends Dinner. Here are some headlines, complete post by Eric at the jump.

• "Demographics are destiny, creating opportunity"
• "The mobile phone will be a mainstream personal computer"
• "Water tech will replace global warming as a priority"
• "Evolution trumps design"
• "Within five years everything that matters to you will be available to you on a device that fits on your belt or in your purse"

Read At The Churchill Club: The Top Ten Tech Trends here.

They must be stopped: Gen X vs The Millennials. Robert Lanham fires the first shot via Radar here.

Astro buzz: Flash 10

Blogs you should know about (but probably never heard of): The Industry Standard's Top 25 B-to-Z List

Congrats & cheers: Les and Quincy on CBS acquiring CNET for 1.8 billion cash. Comcast bought Plaxo, deal closed today (thanks to Michael Arrington via FriendFeed).

"If all else fails, immortality can always be achieved by a spectacular mistake." J.K. Galbraith

"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds." Francis Bacon

"The secret isn't counting the beans, it's growing more beans." Roberto Goizueta

Today's image: The 3 Croakers by Fred Winston. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

The Gillmor Gang - Emergency Edition 05.03.08, Podcast/MP3 audio (68:18) - Steve Gillmor, Mike Arrington, Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Dana Gardner and Robert Anderson. Discussion of the Yahoo-Microsoft mess. Is Yahoo toast? Is Google the big winner? Microsoft to fight another day? They need to become a player in the advertising space. Steve says "Yahoo sounds like the car companies in Detroit in the seventies and eighties, they're gonna get their clocks cleaned." Kudos guys, good show. Related: Scoble's "discussion" proves a perfect illustration of the power that is the FriendFeed app, behold - check it out here.

Can I get an Amen: My thought is CBS would benefit getting Michael Rosenblum involved in a radical reinvention of the 6:30...

"CBS News is now at one of those places where, because they are in so much trouble, (ratings keep dropping to new lows each week), they could.. they could… take a really radical step. They could trash the whole unworkable system and create a very interesting digital newsroom where they could (could) hire the best journalists in the world today (look at places like Huffington Post for starters), and kick ass. With their budgets the could do it in a heartbeat!" Read the entire post Requiem for a Network.

But wait, there's more...

"Local TV stations are in trouble. They are losing viewers and they are big, ungainly, inefficient and not cost effective. They are the children of what is now an increasingly archaic technology. Local stations in major markets employ upwards of 250 people or more to put 8 or 9 camera crews and reporters on the streets every day to gather ‘news’. Is this cost effective? Does it make sense?" Read Michael's entire post, Are Newspapers Poised to Replace Local TV Stations. Randy Michaels and team Tribune would be wise to invite Michael into their discussions.

Bravos to Michael!

Video: Jim Cramer - CBS Should Go Private "...The company is the proof that primetime is not a great business anymore."

Bonus: YouTube video - Amen Break (18:08) "The world's most important 6-second drum loop."

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

George Eastman - "You press the button, we do the rest" Interesting talk by Peter Merholz: Experience is the Product. From Kodak to Apple, developing solutions. Technology > Features > Experience (Video - 47:46) Highly recommended. Aside - great to see folks catching up with the Tom Peters' experience meme.

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"To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty; to be a poet at forty is to be a poet." Eugene Delacroix

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." Michelangelo

"Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was." Dag Hammarskjold

Image: tHr3E by CeErRbBbiiIEeC. Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Twitter in Plain English: Kudos to Lee LeFever. He created a 2.5 min video that explains the popular app. Find it here.

Reading the new Clay Shirky book. A good read; highly recommended...

"In a world where publishing is effortless, the decision to publish something isn't terribly momentous. Just as movable type raised the value of being able to read and write even as it destroyed the scribal tradition, globally free publishing is making public speech and action more valuable, even as its absolute abundance diminishes the specialness of professional publishing. For a generation that is growing up without the scarcity that made publishing such a serious-minded pursuit, the written word has no special value in and of itself. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, pointed out that although water is far more important than diamonds to human life, diamonds are far more expensive, because they are rare. The entire basis on which the scribes earned their keep vanished not when reading and writing vanished but when reading and writing became ubiquitous. If everyone can do something, it is no longer rare enough to pay for, even if it is vital.

The spread of literacy after the invention of movable type ensured not the success of the scribal profession but its end. Instead of mass professionalization, the spread of literacy was a process of mass amateurization. The term "scribe" didn't get extended to everyone who could read and write. Instead, it simply disappeared, as it no longer denoted a professional class. The profession of calligrapher now survives as a purely decorative art; we make a distinction between the general ability to write and the professional ability to write in a calligraphic hand, just as we do between the general ability to drive and the professional ability to drive a race car. This is what is happening today, not just to newspapers or to media in general but to the global society."

Here Comes Everybody. The Power of Organizing without Organizations. Chapter 3, Everyone is a Media Outlet. Amazon info here.

Bonus: Doc knocks the cover clean off the ball...

"I've maintained for some time that the most important step forward in the Net's recent history is not the generational progression from 1.0 to 2.0, but the branching of the Live Web off the Static Web. The big challenge is building out the Live Web, and it's not one we should leave up to the Big Boys, even as we run it over their glass.

That's because the critical enabling feature of the Live Web won't be technical. It will be the moral and political feature we call freedom. That's not something the Big Boys are going to give us. It's something that comes from ourselves."

Read the entire post here. Kudos, Doc!

Bonus 2: Jeff Jarvis The Times better change. Good post and discussion.

Thomas P.M. Barnett: The Man Between War and Peace via Esquire. Bravos, Tom!

Congrats & cheers: Microsoft on IE8! Google on releasing Google Contacts API. The smart ladies of wowowow.com Media wizard Michael Rosenblum opens Rosenblum Institute in the Netherlands.

"Resistance to new ideas increases as to the square of their importance." Bertrand Russell

"Almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced." Alfred N. Whitehead

"Yesterday an idea is mine, today it is yours, and tomorrow it belongs to the whole world." Konstantin Stanislavsky

Today's image: supercitrus super collider by Splat Worldwide. Awesome. Thanks for sharing!

Politics as metaphor

When working with broadcast promotion folks we often use the line "Running for US Senate." We use retail politics as a metaphor. The most successful stations (and talent) understand the concept, understand the need to get out where the viewers/listeners are. Hint: they're not in the station. We counsel that email, chat, im, text, blogs and all the other tools are important but showing up is most important of all.

Over the holiday a colleague was nice enough to send along a heads up that Paige Nienaber had written something about politics and station promotion. It's posted at AllAccess under Consultant Tips, here's a taste...

"I've begun to see more and more stations that, for lack of a better term, have pulled the goalie. Have pulled off the streets. And are marketing themselves impersonally and one dimensionally through e-mail and outdoor.

Side note: My niece lives "out west." Her favorite (if a 16 year-old can have a favorite anymore) station was doing a pretty cool promotion. I asked about it when we were on the phone. She replied "I didn't play. They made you sign up for stuff and I really want more spam." (Exaggerated 16-year-old sarcasm is implied.)

Radio has always done a terrific job of embracing new technologies. It's part of being contemporary. And we should. But each new "thing" is just another part of the arsenal. It's not THE arsenal.

Case-in-point: Someone who goes back a long ways with me -- Jo Jo Wright from KIIS in L.A. Phenomenally talented. Phenomenally nice. And phenomenally smart. Every new gimmick that comes along becomes just another facet in his juggernaut to win the world. Ain't no one going to beat the guy. When pagers came out, like every jock between Medford and Maine, he got one. But he USED it. Came in an hour early each day and returned pages. That creates the kind of loyalty that money (contesting) can't buy.

I was at the hotel pool on my last visit to Cox in Honolulu and chatting with the bartender, who was wearing a KIIS shirt. She brought up, totally unbidden, that the best DJ in the world works there, blah blah blah, she'd texted him for something, they traded texts, etc. et al, ad nauseum. Yep. Jo Jo. She sent him a text to enter her sister for something, he texted back, treated her like an actual live human being, bing-bang-boom. End of story. "Greatest DJ in the world" was her term."

Check out Paige via AllAccess (free reg req) or at his site here. Highly recommended! Thanks and bravos to Paige, very well done! P.S. No matter what business you happen to be in you'll achieve more when you and your team "Run for US Senate." It's another case of putting the focus not on getting better but on getting different. Employ one of the secrets used by every successful campaign - create contrast! P.S.S. The next time your team needs a killer idea or a fresh new approach in staging a promotion/event get in touch with Paige.

The play's the thing

Michael Rosenblum is at it again. Writing wonderful stuff you need to be reading. This time on the art of storytelling...

Stop and think about this for a moment.

All across the country, every who is watching the first shot is thinking exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

Everyone.

This is a pretty impressive trick.

And now you have a moment to capture the audience as yours.

All you have to do is talk to them.

‘To’ them… as opposed to ‘at’ them.

Everyone who is watching this is thinking the same question at the same time - ‘what happened to the dog’.

All you have to do is answer the question.

Read Michael's post, Scripting without paper - 3rd in a series here. Excellent, Michael! Kudos!

They're living closer to the future than we are dept: 64% of online teens (12-17) engaged in at least one type of content creation. 35% of all teen girls blog, 20% of online boys. 54% of wired girls post photos compared to 40% of online boys. Boys do dominate one area - posting videos. As we suggest to clients on the day job - Flickr is to women as ESPN is to men. Read the topline here - Pew Internet: Teens and Social Media

Apropos of nothing: Congrats & cheers to Dan Kois, Lane Brown and the gang at Vulture - behold, Pitchfork's Top 100 Tracks of 2007: A Pie Chart. Genius! Have a look here. Includes link to actual Pf list. Thanks to Rex for the tip.

Ka-ching, Seattle style: Amazon.com's biggest shopping day was December 10th, 5.4 million items sold, 62.5 items ordered per second.


Lesson already in progress: Scobleizer teaches Google an important lesson in GPC (Granular Privacy Controls). Good going Robert! Read his post with comments here. Smart money says team GR will have this fixed before COB. My sense is this stuff is cohort sensitive; the youth define privacy in a new way, or care about it in a truly different way. The truth would seem to remain the same, privacy is a myth.

Bonus: Nada Stirratt & Jason Witt, two stars of the MTVN Ad Group, do the paidContent interview. Kudos to David Kaplan on a job well done!

"I would expect to see new ad products within casual gaming and interactive video overlays. The third piece is mobile and the fourth is social media open platforms. Last month, we launched a widget program with a fast food marketer that worked across multiple sites and had a 360 degree grab-and-hold experience. One of the things that you can’t do with sales—but that Digital Fusion can do—is tap into viral traffic."

Read the interview here.

More of my eight to watch in '08: A brilliant gentleman with the courage to consistently do and say the right thing. Candor as refreshing (and needed) as that first hot cup of coffee in the morning. He's the guy who gave us blogging, podcasting, RSS and you can wager big, without worry, much more to come. Those of us living in Madison claim him a local hero, a UW grad done good. His river of news concept is but one of his fresh takes on what's next, get this guy into your reader today Dave Winer

"The economy of means is founded on the richness of thought." Henryk Tomaszewski

"Imagine a piano having seventy-five different sounds. This is the situation of painters." Salvador Dali

"Elimination is the point of departure." A.G. Fronzoni

Today's image: Fort Pickering Light by StormCrypt. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing!

Decades ago United Technologies Corporation ran a series of full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal. Here is the text from one in that series.

Let's Get Rid of Management

People
don't want
to be
managed.
They want
to be led.
Whoever heard
of a world
manager?
World leader,
yes.
Educational leader.
Political leader.
Religious leader.
Scout leader.
Community leader.
Labor leader.
Business leader.
They lead.
They don't manage.
The carrot
always wins
over the stick.
Ask your horse.
You can lead your
horse to water,
but you can't
manage him
to drink.
If you want to
manage somebody,
manage yourself.
Do that well
and you'll
be ready to
stop managing.
And start
leading.

More from my year end list - Eight to watch in '08:

Thomas P.M. Barnett & Michael Rosenblum

Barnett...

"Hip hop is the great American cultural export of my age. Russell Simmons is a god like Phil Spector was a god. Eric Clapton is replaced by Jay-Z.

This revolution may not be televised, but it's already been merchandised.

Identity preservation and youthful rebellion beautifully fused and sold by the video clip." More

Rosenblum...

"The web is an extremely powerful and plastic medium for capturing information and storytelling. It works equally well in print, video, still, music, graphics and viewer participation. Like any new technology, we have yet to really figure out what to do with it. The day after Gutenberg invented the Printing Press, he could have gone down into the basement and printed The New York Times. All the technology he needed to print a newspaper was now in his hands. What was lacking was the model - the idea." More

Congrats & cheers: Slantly, off the launch pad and live in beta here (& blogging here). The New Radicals, Radar Online names the year's most notable rogues, renegades and rule-breakers here.

"Wisdom begins in wonder." Socrates

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." Goethe

"Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent." Rivarol

Today's image: Kona by Ron Fell. Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

The revolution will be televised (you just have to know where to look): Rob Barnett, refugee and chief of My Damn Channel is feeding, again, into that good night...

Old Media needs writers. But writers don’t need old media.

Old Media is about to be written out of its own show. They’re writing themselves off the island without even knowing it.

Old Media thinks this strike is about keeping a few more pennies of every dollar, when it’s actually about life and death.

Life happens when you embrace change. Death happens when you know you’re sick and you refuse to heal your wounds.

Old Media is crawling all over the railroad tracks - looking for lose change - and they don’t see the train coming.

We’ve all seen this movie before. It’s called, The Sixth Sense. And we know how it’s going to end. All of a sudden, Old Media realizes their old rules are actually dead.

Reminds me of that great line by Gary Hamel..."The future is not proprietary." Check out Rob's very cool new blog here.

But wait, there's more. The revolution is live. We need only read Michael Rosenblum...

"What we have done is to create, for all practical purposes, a population that is illiterate in the lingua franca of its own time - video.

We have placed the ‘ability’ to create in this now very fundamental medium, in the hands of a select and elite few.

This is a mistake."

Read Michael's post here.

So what's new(s)? Dave Winer says...

"This way of doing news is a remnant, it's anachronistic, a relic of the way news used to work, when guys like Bezos and Jobs would go on a press tour, seed Pogue, Markoff, Levy and Mossberg, they would write their pieces and the rest of us would settle for the very limited and highly spun information they provided. It's not that way anymore."

"The press still reflects what the press cares about, competing with other press. But the blogs, who aren't trying to climb the top 100 lists, are doing something else. We're just trying to share information with each other so we can learn, so we can use stuff better, make better choices, improve the products, and eventually create new products."

Conversation writ large. Thanks, Dave. The entire post here.


Fred Winston, celebrated radio star and part-time gentleman farmer, pings me to share a wine and a cheese suggestion. Best to listen up, this guy knows his wine and cheese (to say nothing of his exceptional chili, food and overall kitchen chops). Please join me and check these out. Wine: Ponzi Williamette Valley Pinot Noir 2002. Cheese: d'Affinois (a Brie-like cow's milk cheese). Thanks, Fred.

The last bastion of analog - books

Jeff Bezos on Charlie Rose

kindle

992 pages downloaded in less than a minute

Content more important than distribution channel

Consumers ever more empowered

Great services shine through - Meritocracy

Balance of power shifts away from companies

Amazon customer experience drivers 1) Lowest price 2) Vast selection - choice 3) Get products to customers fast

Bonus: Great talent is out there, more often than you might think that talent may be found in the most unlikely of places. Prepare to be moved. Take a deep breath. Invest a wee bit over 4 minutes and witness a star being born. Amazing! Via YouTube here. My thanks to Tom Asacker for the tip (Agree with Tom, if you can watch the vid and not be moved, please do get yourself some medical attention).

So much to be thankful for this year. Thank you for stopping by. Happy Thanksgiving.

"There are only three kinds of people: bus drivers, bus riders and pedestrian targets. Who do you want to be?" John Wall

"Life is too short to be little." Disraeli

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable." Moliere

Rob Barnett is blogging the good stuff...

"The old business has been hanging on, hoping that somehow the digital genie would dissipate. Bad move. New distribution pipes opened up everywhere taking away one of the last reasons inspired musicians needed major record companies. Little Steven tried to tell me in 2000 that the new digital pipeline recreated the old ‘single’ mentality and shoved the ‘album’ idea to the back of the bus. I didn’t want to believe him, but he was right. He always is."

Kudos, Rob! Check out Rob's blog The Night Feed - here. Highly recommended.

The brand promise of Apple: Scobleizer

The Twenty (Intentionally) Funniest Web Videos of 2007. New York Magazine Plus The New Online Star System

Bonus: Video of a Michael Rosenblum talk, including his famous "serf to monk" story. Thanks to Foreign Correspondence Network, posted here. Bravos to Michael, very well done! Closed circuit to NAB staff: Book this guy to do a keynote in Vegas.

Congrats & cheers: Peter Rojas and company on RCRD LBL

Do schools kill creativity?

Wonderful video. Sir Ken, you are amazing. Bravos! Highly recommended. His book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative - Amazon info here. Intelligence...Diverse, Dynamic, Distinct.