"Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf." R. Tagore

"Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits." Twyla Tharp

"Let's engage the imagination, let's call it news you can dance to." Jo Interrante

Today's image: Dance With Me, Baby by persnicketydame. Wonderful. Thank you!

P L A Y

The play's the thing

We need to put more play into the everyday. Play will put the show back into show business. Broadcast has spent the better part of twenty years focused on the business at the expense of the show. Without the show, there is no business.

Play is an important part of the hard work that is the creative process.

Play enables, empowers, encourages the creative, the spark.

Play is what brings the real creatives to the gig, they come to play.

Play needs a positive environment, a stage.

Play requires an advocate and sometime defense attorney.

Comments: The gifted talent and legendary performer Tom Kent favors us with a comment. Check it out below. Here's a taste...

"The paradigm must shift from sales first to the show first and then we will witness how dramatically the bottom line will improve. When we put money first, money will elude us. When the greater mission is first and is driven by passion and talent, watch the money pour in."

Thanks Tom!

Bonus: ze is back, he came to play, and play again.

Congrats & cheers: Steve Dahl on his big time wins in the trend. His last on WCKG was an exceptional performance. #2 12+ (to the Cubs #1 WGN), #1 25-54 pers, #1 25-54 men, #1 35-64 pers, #1 men 18+. Steve is a rock star playing at the top of his game. A certain unwritten rule applies here. The first ratings to be released after a station has been blown up (or a talent has been released) will invariably be good, exceed any expectation and defy all logic. WCKG posted a twelve month high, 1.7 12+ with a 281k cume. Steve's performance will provide the new format with a solid PMD lift in their fall book. AMD, 25-54, The Morning Fix beat the CKG O&A + GM combo. Middays with one hour of GM, S&T and one hour of Steve, posting a 2.5 25-54 which placed the daypart 16th and ahead of Love, 780 and WLUP. My sense is the 2pm hour was, likely, the primary driver.

"When we listen to that small voice deep inside, we can never go wrong." Tom Kent

"Think like a man of action and act like a man of thought." Henri Bergson

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures, and that is character." Horace Greeley

Today's image: Glorious color by Bill Shannon. Fine shot. Thanks for sharing.

Never underestimate the power of intuition. Over the weekend I was reading Grant by John Mosier (Amazon info). About General Grant's success he writes...

"...great generals are not just smarter than their opponents, they're luckier. And the luck is generally due to superior intuition.

Napoleon had wanted his generals to have this quality. But intuition is a talent that can't be taught. You either have it or you don't."

Perhaps it is a talent that cannot be taught but my sense is one may be able to develop the talent. Development begins with learning to listen to that little voice. The one Tom Kent talks about above. It begins when you open your heart to wonderment, to the possible. The most successful people I know make their own luck and my thought is intuition plays an important part in that process.

Thank you very much: Lots of emails about the weekend post. One of the most emailed questions being "what is your 08 forecast by media?" Still in process. However, here are a few projected shares from OMMA: Newspapers 26.9, TV 38.2, Internet 8.7

Location, location, location: OMMA reporting for the first nine months of 2007, spending by mortgage and home equity advertisers on Internet display increased to $669.6 million from $146 mil in the year-earlier period.

Midtown buzz: Barry Diller wants his AOL.

Better than ever: Paulie Gallis checks in after a brief hospital stay and he sounds great! All is well with the beloved great Greek.

Why too many don't care: Kudos to Brian Lamb and the C-Span crew for bringing us another very good Q&A this past weekend. This time around a conversation with Stanford University history maven David Kennedy. Kennedy opines on why we are not as concerned as previously about engagements of war. He makes reference to WW2 wherein 40% of GDP was devoted to military and 10% of citizens were involved in the armed forces. Contrast and compare to today. Less than 5% of GDP resourced to military and about 4% of citizens in active military. The draft once got the attention of youth, today no consequences for Gen X or Gen Y seems to translate into no interest in world affairs especially war fighting. Increasingly, our armed services are populated with more and more of the economically and educationally deprived. Professor Kennedy's suggestion is this represents a potentially dangerous historic change. He might be right and it should give one pause. I'm proud of our active military. As one who once wore the uniform let me express my sincere appreciation to those serving today and to their families. The good work being done all around the world by our service people never seems to get the attention deserved. If you would like to get dialed-in to one of today's best minds on all things military you need to read the writings of the gifted strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett. As it happens you're in luck, while you wait for Amazon to deliver his books you can read in, he's blogging here. Barnett is a rock star; highly recommended!

History rewrite: Mel stops in fly-over land and chats up the Tribune folks. Thanks to Phil Rosenthal we get this gem about radio...

"It's a very good business. It throws off a lot of cash. But it's not growing ... and once it's not growing, then they started cutting costs and letting Howard Stern and other talent get away."

The inconvenient truth is CBS radio stopped growing during Mel's watch. Readers of this humble blog are aware I'm a Mel fan. He's so money. However, the case can be made that it was Mel that left CBS radio in bad shape. Mel loves to run his mouth and he can be very charming, at times even brilliant but sometimes he says really stupid stuff. Read Phil Rosenthal here.

Congrats & cheers: Programming ace Kurt Johnson celebrated via the R&R Publisher's Profile. Peter Smyth and the Greater Media gang on their acquisition of the Lincoln Financial Charlotte radio portfolio. Raycom on the agreement to add the LF TV properties in Charlotte, Richmond and Charleston. Lucy Hughes named SVP Research for CBS Radio. Mark Johnson and the Powerlabs crew now live in alpha, very cool, I'm lovin being a Powerlabr.

Photo: Free Fall Down Into Nothing by Thomas Hawk. Great shot! Thank you.

"Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage." Benjamin Disraeli

"The most important part of every business is to know what ought to be done." Lucius Columella

"My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others." Thomas A. Edison

What if someone found a photo of yours online and used it, without your permission, to make money. Discovering this would it not be fair for you to complain?

Rebekka, a respected photog and icon in the Flickr community, appears to have this problem. Her images are posted on Flickr, the popular sub of Yahoo! She posted comments complaining about this theft on her Flickr pages only to have the comments removed by Yahoo. As my Georgia relatives would say something bad wrong here. BBC News coverage here. Thomas Hawk offers his pov here. Flickr has offered an apology. Sometimes we forget. We are all making this stuff up as we go along.

Thank you very much: Enjoyed two great lunches this week. In Cleveland, with the amazing and gifted Tom Kent and his wonderful wife Karen. In Madison, with the charming Lindsay Wood Davis, a very bright fellow. I'm blessed to know such good people.

New and noted: Cara welcomes Chicago writer Rick Kaempfer to Cara's Basement. The podcast here. Info on Rick's book $everance here.

Bonus: WORJ is on, thanks to Lee Arnold. Listen via Real Player here. Highly recommended.

Photo: Spring Flowers Series 50

Kelly Hafermann

Cool pic, thank you!

"Presentation rule: when something appears on a slide presentation, assume the world knows about it and deal with it accordingly." William Swanson

Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management: unwritten rule number five...

"Don't think that what shows up in a presentation is private. It will come out. Accept this as a given, and deal with this fact up front. As a leader, when people try to convince you that something you are looking at on the screen - proprietary, competition sensitive and so forth - will never leave the room, assume it already has and deal with it accordingly.

In fact, assume that it will be published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times or The Washington Post. And always maintain an atmosphere of total integrity."

Recently the day job has me involved in a number of new initiatives where an NDA is required. After decades of work in the confidential activities of startups, turnarounds, acquisitions and divestitures my sense is William Swanson is correct. As a practical matter the NDA is not worth much. It does serve to memorialize the sensitivity of the situation, it does put all parties on notice creating a record in the process but it does not prevent disclosure. Further, it does not provide for any realistic remedy. Seems to me you either trust those involved or you don't. Swanson is right. Total integrity, always.

Congrats & cheers: Paul Gallis, Clark Weber and Jim Scully on a simply outstanding event! The Chicago's Music Row reunion was one to remember, a rare moment filled with bold-faced names. The magic of the gathering was the diversity, the depth, the rich mix of those attending. Different generations from different career paths coming together. New kids on the block, folks at the top of their game, and pros from all walks hanging out with true legends. A heady time for us mortals in attendance. Many played catch up, others met for the first time. Fun for all attending. Art Vuolo rolled video and is certain to release one if his commemorative DVDs. Paul tells me the official photog will have pics to share soon. If you happened to have been at the event and have pics to share please send them (jpeg) to Paul at Chicagosmusicrow (at) gmail (dot) com.

While in Chicago enjoyed an incredible dinner with the legendary Fred Winston. Fred has a knack, a gift for discovering and sharing really exceptional small rooms; he finds places packed with character and overflowing with amazing food. The groceries were terrific and Fred's company purely one-of-a-kind. Tom Kent said it best recently. Referring to the Robert Redford character in the film The Natural, Tom said "Fred is the Roy Hobbs of radio, he is the best that ever was."

Speaking of Redford his first Sundance Cinema opened here yesterday. As a former theatre circuit owner allow me to say it is one beautiful property. Kudos and cheers to Redford and company. Dean Robbins has the back story via Isthmus here.

Where is the line? Who draws it? It's the topic of discussion. Imus, Sharpton, O&A, JV & Elvis. How far is too far? What should the consequences be? My suggestion is the marketplace is the best arbiter and should be in all cases not involving violations of the law. It's a shame, too many operators are afraid to stand up today. What is needed now more than ever is for operators to stand up in support of their performers. We need operators who understand the importance of doing the right thing, standing up to defend their way of doing business. Operators willing to allow the marketplace to decide.

Leadership must take responsibility. Performers don't just go off the rez by themselves. In my experience this most often happens as a result of benign neglect. What management allows it encourages. Performers need guidance, need coaching, need direction, need to understand where the boundaries are (even the ones we draw in chalk, having a show road map on a magic slate is far better than no understanding). The Imus, O&A and JV & Elvis incidents each represent a failure of leadership. Consistently, the #1 complaint of performers is "no feedback," the #2 complaint is "when feedback is given it's negative." The secret is to catch performers doing something right. The process begins with a deep understanding of standards, expectations and consequences.

The operating practice "not to offend" was born in the earliest days of broadcast. From his new book, Same Time, Same Station, James L. Baughman writes "They (CBS & NBC), in effect, collectively signed a social contract by entering radio. They would curtail their freedom of expression - laboring not to offend the moral guardians - in exchange for continued access to the great audience of radio listeners...Television's first generation of executives and producers understood radio's basic commandment: the moral sensitivities of any significant portion of the great audience must not be upset. That 'portion' might not represent most viewers. Indeed, a minority adept at letter-writing wielded extraordinary power...Broadcasters were expected to behave...Remarked the actor and producer Desi Arnaz, 'You are coming into their house." ("The Mother of Television", pgs 15, 25).

The notion of being "an invited guest" in someone's home, the once accepted operating mindset, may now seem quaint, indeed anachronistic. Too often it remains the single perspective of law makers, regulators and the gang of self-proclaimed media watch dogs. Work done or positions taken in the name of protecting our children has become a popular, albeit potentially chilling, cause celebre.

Perhaps the lesson learned is the power of the freak show. The monster that must be fed. The always on world of the 24-hour news cycle. Sound bites driving storytelling without the homework of proper context.

Closed circuit to TV producers: Stop calling Al Sharpton. The man is a hack past his best used by date. Granted having him comment on matters of race is the quick and easy solution to getting a "black pov" into the mix but here's the deal - Sharpton has a pattern, he does not speak for others but only for his own benefit. Hint: neither Jessie, Tavis, or any other single public figure speaks for or represents the community. What's needed here is clear. Do the homework and develop a stronger, more relevant rolodex of qualified thought leaders. You should not be waiting for a race issue to invite persons of color to join the conversation. When the talking heads are all white and male you have lost your way.