"If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near." Jack Welch
"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible." William Faulkner
"There's a saying among scientists, that you don't know you've got a really good idea until at least three Nobel laureates have told you it's wrong." Paul Lauterbur
The brilliant Bob Henabery, my creative godfather, often suggested to me that to understand the contrarian mindset one must be able to grasp "driving on the other side of the road." He was right.
Another mentor, the gifted genius Jim Yergin, frequently called me out on my use of metaphor, to wit: "By using analogy, injecting metaphor, what you are doing is avoiding the hard work of thinking. It tells me that you have not developed your thought to the point that you can articulate it clearly without secondary reference." He was right.
2010 should be a time of incredible opportunity for broadcasters. A game-changing moment when the most creative people working in professional audio and video take charge and take the lead in the brave new world of digital, always on audio and video. After all, they have an urgent need to make something happen.
Instead, we are witness to those without professional broadcast provenance taking charge: Pandora leads the emerging music audio space and YouTube leads the space that is becoming the new video.
How did it happen that broadcast professionals witnessed the take off and have continued to watch the early flight of these new players without mounting any significant response? What has enabled these amateurs to succeed, to make progress while the incumbents, the broadcasters, have, or so it may be argued, simply watched?
My sense is Pandora and YouTube have dared to dream.
They are learning to fly right before our eyes (and ears). What were once dismissed as "pigs on the runway" have taken flight and they're now on the radar.
While they may represent the best known entrants into the new audio and video spaces, they are not alone, they're only two of the increasing many that share a charter - reinventing media and radically changing the mediascape as we know it.
Next, I will offer a point of view and some suggestions for how broadcasters can and should move forward in this brave new world. As always, your comments are welcome and encouraged.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
"It would be a great mistake to confine your imagination to the way things have always been done. In fact, it would consign you to the mediocrity of the marketplace." Harold Geneen
"The moment a person forms a theory his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory." Thomas Jefferson
Again, chasing those three tenets of new media for broadcasters. Ensure your assets are digital, discoverable and ready to share.
Today, we'll unpack discoverable.
Like it or don't Google is your home page (as previously suggested). Increasingly, your home page is becoming less relevant. Attention must be focused on making each web page stand out and stand alone. This is a shift in the conventional strategy, from optimization of the home page to the landing page.
Incoming! Analytics are your friend, they are very important to you. No matter what you are now running, please do add Google Analytics to your mix. Using this blog as an example, a consistent 50% of traffic is being directed via search engine to a specific post, rather than the main page. This seems to be, generally, a good representative average provided the available evidence including the metrics of our clients worldwide. Your mileage may vary - so do check it. Now, back to the countdown. Google is driving the largest share of SE traffic to this blog, followed by (a distant second) Yahoo!, then google.co.uk, blogsearch.google.com, google.ca, google.com.au, google.co.in, google.nl, google.fr, well, all those other Googles, you get the idea. To be fair, search.aol.com, bing.com and others do direct traffic this way but they are, at present, driving combined contributions that register a single digit percentage in total SE referrals. Now, and in the near future, it's safe to wager we are playing a game of Google.
So Google your brand. Google your talent. Google your key attributes. Google those words and combination of words that are important to you. Start with "I'm Feeling Lucky" and only then move to the SERP. Then, only the first page counts. Study. Take notes. Take action to improve your performance. Test, test, test. Measure. When "Lucky" produces your pages, you win (in that moment). Please do remember, the equation is dynamic. This is some new form of chess we are all playing and what it clearly is not is any simple game of checkers. In the brave new world of real-time, walk away time is collapsing. As a practical matter, incumbency is meaningless.
As the gifted Count Basie said "One more once."
It's not a game of getting better but one of getting different. The key for broadcasters, those in search of the most effective solution set, is to focus less on the numerator and more on the denominator. Game on.
Misc data: Month after month, the number one most-viewed page on this blog continues to be the amazing original writing of 2004 by the brilliant Bob Henabery, my creative godfather and mentor. Bob writes about media legends Bill Drake and Rick Sklar...Top 40, The Fox and the Hedgehog, it's a great read, here. The second most-viewed is my 2004 update of an earlier monograph on leadership, A Great General Manager, here.
Sidebar: Following Brent D Payne, SEO of Tribune, on Twitter I noticed his tweet about his new boss. Brent had been reporting to the CTO, and tweeted that his new boss was Trib's COO. When I asked him about it he said via email "It was mainly done to focus me more on monetization an (sic) product versus technical changes to the CMS." My take is this is one very savvy move. Tribune groks the notion, the true business value of search. My congrats to Brent who is doing a wonderful job for team Trib. They are lucky to have him and would be wise to ensure his continued contribution. Closed circuit to Randy: lock in this gentleman and thank me later.
Congrats and cheers: Regular readers of this humble blog are aware of my great love for FriendFeed. It remains my feeling that FriendFeed is one of the great killer apps in social media. It's not only a killer app but it is, as well, a wonderful community of folk like no other. While many in the community are suggesting that FriendFeed being acquired by Facebook will be the end of an era, my thought is we're gonna be just fine thank you very much. Facebook will be better as will FriendFeed. That's my story and I'm sticking to it until proven wrong. Congrats, cheers, bravos and kudos to the FriendFeed and Facebook gangs. Here's hoping you guys knock the cover clean off the ball.
Extra credit: The Flow Past Web: even better than the RealTime thing, here.
Bonus: Steven Wright killed on Letterman last night. He threw a bunch of classic stuff including...A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths. - Enjoy, pages of some of his best, here.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
"Fear is a bad adviser." Sergio Vieira de Mello
"Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem." Woody Allen
"Advertising is the price we pay for being unoriginal." Yves Behar
Stan Cornyn, a senior officer with Warner Brothers records, delivered a famous speech in 1975. His address was titled The Day Radio Died. Stan presented this wake up call at the annual NARM convention, a gathering of record folk along with their distributors and retailers. He said "...radio should not be the only game in town. Records should be." Going on to say "...the record business has sold only what it could get played. Do we, as an industry, really want to confine our sales only to records that can get frequent airplay?" He did understand how critically important radio was to the record business "...if it weren't for radio, half of us in the record companies would have to give up our Mercedes Benz leases."
Stan had the audacity to suggest records urgently needed to find an effective, profitable way of doing business without radio. His suggestion was about nothing short of revolution, about getting dramatically different.
Stan was a visionary. History has proven, his wise counsel was ignored. His peers and contemporaries elected to stay focused on what they knew, obsessed with getting better at the same game.
Back from the near death experience
Todd Storz once saved radio from death. He took a bold and contrarian view - programming to the ignored, listeners not then a cohort of the so-called mainstream - the youth audience. Storz employed powerful accomplices, Rock 'n' Roll, tight rotations and the "closed" playlist. As the brilliant Bob Henabery has written "Sparked by the inventions of the portable transistor radio and Top 40 on the AM band, a generation of baby boomers was galvanized by pop music." Read Bob's excellent writing here.
Once Storz achieved success the herd instinct kicked in, Top 40 swept the nation. As a practical matter the youth radio revolution was responsible for radio's dramatic revenue growth, over 800% between 1940 and 1970. What Storz did was counter to all industry dogma, having nothing to lose he threw out the rule book, he fundamentally changed radio by getting radically different while others were focused on getting better. In a world of rule takers Storz was the outlier, the rule breaker and he became the new rule maker.
Next: We need to rise to the game-changing challenge that history is again presenting to us. The first and second tribes of wireless are now being offered amazing, once in a generation opportunities. My thought is...this moment is rich with incredible potential. More tomorrow.
IF
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virture,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Spanish red: Vina Mayor, Crianza 2002. Ribera del Duero. A simply wonderful red under $15.
Buzz: Steven Spielberg preparing to launch a new social network said to involve a community around ghosts and ET stuff.
Too early to tell: Chicago's Fresh, the CBS Radio initiative that replaced FM talker WCKG did not best the talkers 25-54 showing of last year. The talkers' 2007 high mark was a 2.5, Fresh just posted a 1.8 trend. Fresh did deliver an in-demo cume of over a quarter mil. Stay tuned.
Congrats & cheers: It's "only a trend" but...Steve Dahl breaks into Chicago's top ten morning shows at #9, 25-54; an outstanding afternoon debut for WLUP's Eddie Webb, #5, 25-54. Fred Winston hired as "special guest star" and debuts tomorrow. Sheryl Sandberg joins Facebook as COO. Gannett bows new glossy FSI OpenAir this Friday.
Friday, September 14, 2007
"I didn't get where I am by thinking about it or dreaming it. I got there by doing it." Estee Lauder
"Opportunities multiply as they are seized." Sun Tzu
"When someone says they don't mind, they mind." Johnny Martin
The 10th and most important step. The one I took off the list, making the list nine in number.
That was totally wrong.
Here's the deal. If you had asked me to give you only one suggestion, a single suggestion that would make a difference in the performance of your talent, my one BIG idea, it would have been the 10th step, the one I took off the list.
Day job anecdotal evidence: This single suggestion is the secret of how we were able to take a #6 morning radio show to #2 without changing any of the players, without a penny of promotion or advertising. This simple suggestion is how we were able to take a #4 11pm news show to #2 without changing any of the players, without a dime of additional promotion. In both cases our 2008 goal is to be #1 and we will be (our clients are in total agreement and are now budgeting as the market leader). This approach helped us to take the #4 billing cluster to the #2 biller position (same sales team, same ratings). On the day job we have a deep understanding, appreciation and respect for this approach because we know it produces results.
I share this here today in the hope you will take advantage of the concept and, understanding this to be nothing less than really, really hard work, know that it is work that you can master. So here it is...
Performance is process. You must honor the moment. You need to fully understand and appreciate the incredible power of your influence. The #1 hobby of every talent is watching, listening to and talking about you and others on the crack management team. Talent are sensitive creative animals, they are dialed-in to nuance. They are children walking around in adult bodies. One of the very best returns on investment is getting serious about adult learning.
Let me introduce some literature from learning theory...
"The most important question which remains is that which asks how a teacher's expectation becomes translated into behavior in such a way as to elicit the expected pupil behavior." (Reference - PDF)
Pygmalion
Here is the theory in brief. When managers expect the best from performers they get the best. When managers expect the worst they get it. J. Sterling Livingston is author of the now famous 1969 Harvard Business Review writing - Pygmalion in Management. Good old J. said...
"What managers expect of subordinates and the way they treat them largely determine their performance and career progress."
Please read that last sentence again. Write it down. Think about this everyday. Two words...
Expect
Treat
Those are the two keys that will unleash incredible success with talent.
What you expect of them.
The way you treat them.
Expect great things and treat them like stars and you will get success beyond your dreams.
Stanislavski taught...
"Stimulate in an actor an appetite for his part. This preserves the freedom of the creative artist."
It was the legendary Paul Drew who taught me the lesson; being #1 starts with thinking about, planning on and being #1. "Dave, every NFL team begins the season with a playbook, a detailed plan to take them to the Super Bowl. Dave, what is your plan?" As ever, PD was spot-on! Thank you very much Paul!
Go for greatness! Nothing less.
All things Classic Rock: Dan Kelley offers up a blog for radio programmers here. My thanks to Dan for his kind words and for links to this humble blog.
This image has a related essay. They are part of a book John is writing within Flickr. Check it out here.
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." Bill Gates
"Flexibility is the highest attribute of human intelligence." Bob Henabery
"The conductor of the orchestra doesn't make a sound." Benjamin Zander
Tribune accepts Sam Zell offer: Cubs to be sold after this season. Regulatory may require sale of broadcast properties. Katharine Q. Seelye and Andrew Ross Sorkin have the story writing for NYT here.
"If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near." Jack Welch
