Friday, November 10, 2006

Photo credit: Phantom Kitty Great shot, thanks

"...disruptive doesn't matter to me. It's a known entity and it's happening whether we like it or not. So the answer is you can either ignore it or throw a bunch of lawyers on it or you can go be where the opportunities are for it. That's the attitude we're going to take" Quincy Smith, CBS

Quincy's remark from Straci's interview with him at paidContent here

Enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Tom Teuber. At his suggestion we went to The Avenue Bar, a Madison landmark. Smart guy involved in some exciting projects - stay tuned. Tom is one of those rare talents, having programming and performer skills of equal and impressive weight.

Rick Sklar
came up in our lunch conversation which reminded me of the brilliant writing about Rick and Bill Drake done by the great Bob Henabery and featured previously on this blog. Bob's writing gets my highest recommendation: read Bob's writing, all about Top 40 radio here.

A bunch of chatter this week about Google and the first tribe of wireless. Some of the dinosaurs, the bitter lot now out of the trade, are making fresh their end of the world pronouncements. Total nonsense. Google along with Yahoo and Microsoft are reinventing media and media sales. They are each making significant investments and, as written here before, they will, most likely, all crack the code at about the same time. I'll also tip my hat, again, to Fig and his Softwave Media Exchange, another crew developing new markets. Some, too many in my view, in the trade are doing a bunch of talking and little else. Their next move? You can safely bet on another round of press releases. Some of these old media are eager to gin up the street, they have need to put out some kind of positive spin in what has been a terrible year. Thus, tall tales replete with high-tech cutting-edge gibberish; look for all those overused words and phrases including...innovative, leverage, collaboration, accretive, platform, multi-platform, revolutionary, disruptive, shareholder value, new business and unlocking value. I'll wager that some in the trade, those serious about competing for the future, will embrace the brave new world of digital and go on to achieve great success. Some of the smart kids have already made trips to Redmond and Mountain View. There has never been a better time to be working in measured media, the possible of today is incredible, the possible of tomorrow truly amazing. Game on. (FD: Yes, I am involved in a number of related initiatives but not able to discuss details at this time - pesky NDA issues)

Thunder, lightning, rain, wind, snow...raw day today in Madison. Looking forward to the weekend and being back in Chicago.

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