"Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations." Jean Paul Richter

"The wrong way is endless." Bert Hellinger

Today's image: The Land of Ghosts by peter bowers. Fabulous. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to the first quarter we were all warned about. Earlier this week the Association of National Advertisers released findings from a recent study indicating 77% of marketers plan to reduce their advertising media budgets. 72% said they plan to reduce advertising-campaign production budgets. Marissa Miley provides more detail via Ad Age - Most Marketers Cutting Budgets, Renegotiating With Agencies - here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, media consumption remains in good shape. The Grammys pulled in 19 mil viewers, up 14% from last year. Not Idol numbers but respectable. The continuing economic problems with broadcast are related to leadership, a massive failure of imagination and, as has been said many times in this space, sales issues that have turned into a full blown sales crisis. While the state of the nation's economy provides a good cover story for media CEOs, the weak economy has simply exacerbated ongoing fundamental business problems. The real task at hand is getting serious about industry reinvention, especially sales, and making something happen. Execution not excuses.

My sense is the wacky crazy death meme will continue cause it's so much fun (e.g., newspapers are dead, radio is dead, TV is dead, agencies are dead, advertising is dead). Seems to me the media darlings of 2009 will be social media led by Facebook. The most recent valuations for FB alone pegs it at $3.7B. The buzz on Twitter has those boys clocking in around $250mil. Stay tuned. Let me add that mobile will remain near the top of every media CEO's agenda this year and it deserves to be. Local, local, local. One other thought for media CEOs - How large is your developer community? Each property should establish, nurture, support, encourage, recognize and reward a developer community. Seems to be working out well for Google.

Bravos: WSUM General Manager Dave Black leads the Madtown student radio station to a new home. Deborah Ziff has the story via Wisconsin State Journal - New digs for University of Wisconsin-Madison's student radio station - here. [Thanks to Tom Teuber for the tip]

Congrats & cheers: Carrie Bugbee (for her exceptional ongoing performance as that incredible doll we've come to know as @PeggyOlson) and all the winners of The Shorty Awards. Related: Check out the Supporting Characters gang that supported the Mad Men Twitter campaign, here.

Bonus: Bill Figenshu writes If There Was Ever a Time via RBR, here. Kudos, Fig. Well said.

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see." Arthur Schopenhauer

"A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding." Marshall McLuhan

"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it." Stephen Leacock

Today's image: Fire Canoe #3 by peter bowers. Simply beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Vegas, baby! NAB.

From Chapter 1, Made to Engage, Stop listening to your customers and start interacting with them, The Age of Engage by Denise Shiffman (Amazon info)...

Understanding the Live Web

This isn't your Web of just five years ago. This is a new Web, an interactive, user-generated, linking, social environment. Take a look at a simple comparison of what's changed.

Web 1.0 > Web 2.0
Static > Live
Publish > Interact
Inform > Engage
Link > Tag
Sell > Socialize
Control > Collaborate

"Taking a new step; uttering a new word is what people fear most." Dostoyevsky

"To be free is precisely the same thing as to be pious, wise, just and temperate, careful of one's own, abstinent from what is another's and thence, magnanimous and brave...To be an opposite of these is the same thing as to be a slave." Milton

"What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job? If you don't understand this you will get lost, however intelligent you are. It is the great secret." Lao-Tzu

Today's image: Trees, Snow and Fog by Peter Bowers. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Trace v. Piers
No contest

In the Celebrity Apprentice competition Trace never had a chance. Had it been a contest of personality, a match awarded to the most charming or the nicest guy Trace would have walked away with it. But it was the Donald's game and in the world of business cash is king. Piers consistently "billed" better, game over. After all, management is paid to produce, responsible for results.

Did Piers game the system? Of course. Was Piers a jerk? Perhaps. It is safe to say he's got a sharp edge, a "shark's attitude" especially when compared to the reserve grace of the gentleman Trace.

The outcome serves to confirm one of the fundamentals of business. Being a nice guy is not enough, you've got to deliver; winners get the job done. Nice guys do finish first but only when they perform.

Truth be known a significant number of business failures can be traced to nice people not doing their jobs. Nice guys that don't do their job are working against the venture itself. Moreover, they too often are allowed to hold their job without the usual continuing qualification.

The nice guy can be dangerous if he's a mediocre or failed performer. The nice guy's social engineering skills may help him to gain popularity, leverage with the staff ("Everybody likes Alex, he's a great guy"). That popularity may even provide him with an unfair pass, one others don't get, a pass that hurts the enterprise ("Alex dropped the ball again but that's Alex, the guy really does work hard, he's doing his best"). The nice guy that fails to perform after being given fair warning and a chance to turn it around needs to be reassigned or released.

The failed nice guy is holding down a job that should go, to the ultimate benefit of the business, to a more productive person. In the words of the great Norm Goldsmith "If they're not helping you, they're hurting you." You need to do the right thing, move along the failed nice guy and make room for a contributor, an effective producer.

Some of the most dangerous sellers in media are the ones who do their best selling in the office. These are the champions of graduate level dog ate my homework. These sellers are always seen to be very, very busy. They have confused activity with progress and so have their managers.

Similarly, there are times when work ethic buys the wrong person a pass. Recently we were asked to take a meeting with a struggling director of NTR sales. This person was very busy, so tightly-scheduled with calls and related presentation prep, that we had to meet over a 6:30 am breakfast.

Bottom line - lots of activity, very few closed sales.

The person was openly failing on the job but given a pass time and time again because of work ethic ("The hardest working person in the company", "First in the office and last to go home every single day", "The hardest worker on the team, a class act") A classic mistake, the case of rewarding diligence over delivery.

We each earn our place on the team one day at a time. My personal preference is a positive work environment driven by values, a team where jerks are simply not tolerated. Freaks and mavericks always being welcome and valued additions.

The best performing teams are those that are held to established standards. Standards with well known consequences.

Meritocracy works best when everyone knows the rules of the game, when performance trumps personality, when productivity and progress are the most prized metrics.

Bonus: Never be late again. Thanks Googlers for GMail Custom Time.

It's what we don't know that will hurt us: Peter Ferrara deserves credit he's not yet getting. First, he gathered a group of radio's best and brightest for an idea summit early last month to discuss what was and what was not working with initiatives directed by the HD Radio Alliance. Second, he killed the ill-starred 2008 HD Radio Alliance creative campaign ("It's your radio") along with the two-year old "Discover it" tag line. Informed by his idea summit, Peter has refreshed the creative and developed a new tag line - "It's time to upgrade." Clearly, that's commendable progress.

What's still missing in these initiatives is disclosure, a serious and firm commitment to transparency. Going forward what are the goals and objectives, how exactly will performance, progress be measured? What were the goals/objectives in first quarter and how did we do? It comes down to defining success, establishing fair and reasonable quantitative metrics. What's par? Are we winning or losing? Making real progress or falling behind? It's what we don't know that will hurt us.

The HD Radio Alliance needs a scorecard, one that's shared and openly discussed with the industry. It's the right thing to do.

2004: "...increasingly it's all about audio and not at all about radio. We must dedicate ourselves to recruiting music programmers who possess an effective skill set eclipsing Selector expert and plays well with others...Going forward music radio must abandon the role of jukebox...Let's agree to stop describing our programming as compelling unless something actually happens on the radio station after the morning show that is not a liner, a sweeper, a promo, that day's music log, or one exceptionally good phone bit with a contest winner. Read the entire post here.

Happy Thanksgiving

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." Proust

Our first measurable snowfall of the season began yesterday.

Today's image: by Collingwood Trees II by Peter Bowers. Beautiful. Thank you.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited." Albert Einstein

"The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor." Christian Bovee

"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely." Auguste Rodin

"I think most music will soon be free"

Chris Anderson has posted an interesting item on the music biz from which I have liberated the quotation above. Chris goes on to say...

"And for those who say that this avenue is only available to artists at the head of the curve, such as Madonna and Radiohead, I'd point out that the other group poorly served by the labels are those at the bottom of the curve, the many thousands of bands who fall below the radar of the hit-driven majors. I'd argue that they, too, have nothing to lose by letting their music go free, nothing to lose but the prospect of becoming indentured to companies stuck in last century's model of monetizing music" Read Chris' post Everything in the music industry is up (except those plastic discs) here. Kudos Chris, well said.

Steve Rubel offers up a solid writing on where we are today. The Web 2.0 World is Skunk Drunk on it's own Kool-Aid. Worth the jump here. It is feeling a bit (too much) like 1999. It's great to have the Prince of PR back in the hunt. Serve up the candor Steve. Meanwhile, speaking of refreshing unvarnished candor, Dave Winer shares the gift of perspective and reminds us #1. Remember to have fun and more. Thanks to Steve and to Dave!

Today's image: Sunrise with Ducks II by Peter Bowers. Beautiful shot. Thank you.