"None are more liable to mistakes than those who act only on second thoughts." Luc de Vauvenargues

"Problems always appear big when incompetent men are working on them." William Feather

"Patience is bitter, but its fruits are sweet." Jean Jacques Rousseau

Today's image: Dreamy World by dhahi alsaeedi. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

The Slow Growth of HD Radio. The assiduous Tom Webster of Edison Media Research reviews the bidding and makes a suggestion...

"HD has to start with great, new digital brands first, with distribution over HD receivers AND online, and at least some of these have to be big, high profile national shows. Radio's goal should be compelling digital brands for the future, and in that context HD radio is just one means of distribution...The solution is not a programming issue but an HR strategy issue."

Bravos to Tom. He's right, it's not either/or, rather it's an issue of AND. Read Tom's entire post here. Thanks, Tom. Let's keep the conversation moving forward.

Let me suggest we run with Tom's concept of "big, high profile national shows" AND continue local innovation (e.g., The gifted programmer Mark Pennington and his award winning offering - RIFF2)

The national creative is getting better. My thought is it still lacks the power of localization. It needs the local tag, that specific and very local "door buster" to drive retail. It's what Rob Walker calls "the Desire Code...(his) name for the complex factors, rational and otherwise, that spark us to make particular purchase decisions." [via]. It's what Douglas Atkin refers to saying "The time has arrived for brands to take their place among others as new iterations of community in contemporary society." [via]. The first tribe of wireless has the ability to create communities from scratch practically overnight. Nothing subtle about this, what's needed now is full on, in your face, retail selling, take the gloves off stuff engaging the Reptilian brain. Let's agree to stop playing around and commit every industry resource to a full blown initiative of Manhattan Project or Moon shot scale. Let's agree to put every advantage available into play and create our own future. It's analog, it's digital, it's online, it's wireless in every configuration. Every platform matters.

Doc Searls: The new business of free radio. Doc understands the big picture as few do. Have to disagree with his notion of towers being less useful in the future. As it pertains to analog, agreed but HD Radio offers the potential of a unique depth and richness of practical apps. Wireless wins.

Stay tuned: I'm willing to wager that branding wizard Kelly O'Keefe and team have something special up their Radio 2020 sleeve.

Now, on the N=1 Tech desk: The uber-cool tech maven Dave Winer. Thanks to a wee bit of script this blog now features a preview of Dave Winer's TechJunk, Hot Product News for Tech Innovators. Check it out, left column. Use the link and put it in your reader. Thanks, Dave!

Summary judgment: Song of the Summer of 08 - I Kissed a Girl, Katy Perry [YouTube]. After conferring with radio programming aces Brian Kelly and Mark Edwards, advantaged, as well, by the considered opinion of pop music aficionado Austin Johnson, it seems fair to pronounce Katy the winner.

NPR API, the back story: Steve Gillmor delivers the goods with NPR's Dennis Haarsager, Zach Brand and Daniel Jacobson via The Gillmor Gang here. Kudos to Steve for a good show. Bravos to Dennis for his refreshing and exceptional leadership. Highly recommended (the show and Dennis' leadership)

Run that by me one more time: WGCI is a top ten no show in the 12 to death pre-currency Chicago PPM data. Here's the 12+ ranker. 1. WGN 2. WDRV 3. WBBM-AM 4. WTMX 5. WUSN 6. WLS-FM 7. WVAZ 8. WLS-AM 9. WLIT 10t. WLEY, WOJO. 25-54 pers, WDRV #1, WTMX #2. The headline news for me was reach. 12+ cume - WDRV #1. WLIT #2. WTMX #3.

Congrats & cheers: Early happy birthday wishes to the one year old My Damn Channel (7/31). Web 2.0 ace Rob Barnett and his gang of co-conspirators are writing their own sheet music. It sounds, and looks, mighty cool. Facebook signs search and advertising deal with Microsoft (MySpace has a somewhat similar deal with Google).

Closed circuit to Google: I'm lovin my iGoogle but what's up with the slow loading of GMail? Seems to be getting even slower, more often than not requiring a reload prompt..."This is taking longer than usual. Try reloading the page." Is it a bug that is part of the iGoogle "experiment"? Have anything to do w/Firefox 3?

It's a social thing: Best line of last week, Jason Calacanis..."FriendFeed drinks Twitter's milkshake." My thought is last summer Twitter was white hot, this summer it's FriendFeed that's clearly on. Twitter fail?

"Leadership is the initiation and direction of endeavor in the pursuit of consequence. Anything else is criticism from janitors." Royal Alcott

"If you mean to profit, learn to please." Winston Churchill

"Work is the price paid for reputation." Baltasar Gracian

Today's image: Everlasting in blue by kimtojin. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Warm up that Plan B: If you're in the ad-supported measured media dodge best to get something real ready now and on hot standby. The economy is not coming around. Ted Forstmann, one of the brightest guys in private equity, says we are in a credit crisis "...the likes of which I've never seen..." [The Credit Crisis is Going to Get Worse by Brian M. Carney, via WSJ here]. Also in the article, Ted shares some wisdom from Warren Buffett, once telling him about the three "I"s in every cycle...1. Innovator 2. Imitator 3. Idiot. My sense is the Idiots will continue to be obsessed with the numerator, blamestorming - making excuses, delegating blame to the business cycle and other external forces. No matter, their "getting better" strategy is past its best used by date. The Idiots will create opportunity for a fresh new cycle led by Innovators. The Innovators will get busy, focused on the very serious business of getting dramatically different and, in the process, change the denominator. For those playing along at home, Ted is Farid's boss. Hint: "The source of Google's competitive advantage is learning by doing" so says Google chief economist Hal R. Varian. Read more Google, Zen Master of the Market via NY Times here. Bravos to Ted for telling it like it is and congrats to Brian on the get with kudos for a piece well done.

Buzz: Wal-Mart gets a new logo (Blue w/orange sunburst) and loses the hyphen becoming Walmart. FireShot - the Firefox screenshot extension, very cool. More info here (thanks to Dave Winer for the tip).

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room: Dave Winer leads the league (again). He bows TechJunk [related blog]. If you want to stay on the absolute leading edge of tech, get this into your reader. Bravos to Dave!

Bonus: GuruFocus. Stock picks and market insights gleaned from the truly rich (e.g., the major player wealth including Warren Buffet)

Congrats & cheers: Lisa Lambden & Michael Rosenblum to be married next month. Michael blogs about it here. Public Radio Programming Directors Association bows new site. Radio programming ace Dave Wellington joins Clear Channel, new skipper at WWDC and WCHH. (thanks to Lee Arnold for the tip). The 2008 Women to Watch winners including Sandy Constan, Nancy Hill, Charlene Li, Maureen McGuire, Kavita Vazirani, Mary Beth West and Vivi Zigler. More via Ad Age here.

Grapes: More good values in red under $10. Penfolds, Koonunga Hill, Shiraz Cabernet, 2006 (Australia). Dona Paula, Los Cardos, Malbec, 2006 (Argentina).