"It’s harder to imagine the past that went away than it is to imagine the future. What we were prior to our latest batch of technology is, in a way, unknowable. It would be harder to accurately imagine what New York City was like the day before the advent of broadcast television than to imagine what it will be like after life-size broadcast holography comes online. But actually the New York without the television is more mysterious, because we’ve already been there and nobody paid any attention. That world is gone." William Gibson

“Content is always shaped by the container.” Robert Tercek

"Productive paranoia is the ability to be hyper-vigilant about potentially bad events that can hit your company and then turn that fear into preparation and clearheaded action." Morten T. Hansen

Today's image: Afternoon sun by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to the countdown. The waning days of 2011. The stage setting days which serve as the 2012 prologue. All the best to you, may you deliver your 2011 numbers and then some.

My thought is these are some of the most important issues for 2012. They deserve your attention, consideration, study, discussion and critical thinking. Thereafter, decisive action is required.

Mobile
Social
Cloud
HTML5
Data
Real-time
Revenue development
Metrics (Related: Dashboard Design)
Talent

In the coming weeks I'll blog about each issue.

On mobile, let me suggest too few media properties have made the investment required to create a solid mobile version of their website. In 2012, this is no longer optional, it's not a luxury or a nice-to-have, a mobile version of your site will be required for you to stay competitive. Having an app is fine, however, it is simply not a substitute for a great mobile version of your site.

This past week, Google began asking if you're "READY TO GO MO?" They've launched a mobile initiative that you may use to learn more about what it takes to be mobile-friendly and you may also test your site's mobility, here.

Believing it important to eat my own dog food, I was able, with Google's help, to launch the mobile version of N=1 this past summer.

Wanted: leadership in sales innovation and revenue development. Two recent exhibits of the ongoing revenue crisis in both donation-supported and ad-supported media. This round, it's broadcast television, public and commercial.

In harm's way: Ebert Presents At The Movies. Roger Ebert writes "Unless we find an angel, our television program will go off the air at the end of its current season. There. I've said it. Usually in television, people use evasive language. Not me. We'll be gone. I want to be honest about why this is. We can't afford to finance it any longer."  The show is cleared in all of the top 50 markets by public stations. Affiliates get the show for free. It's produced at WTTW in Chicago and distributed by American Public Television (APT). The catch? Roger is the only source of funding. They have been unable to attract the underwriting needed to cover costs. Tragic. Read Roger's column, here.

Sales Couldn't Sell "The Simpsons" by Fred Jacobs via jacoBLOG

Bonus: Radio programming ace, Mark Edwards blogs about the first tribe of wireless. Is Local Radio Dead? In Some Ways It Is, But Owners Don't Know It Yet, here

"Few people think more than two or three times a year, I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week." George Bernard Shaw

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea." Sir Francis Bacon

Today's image: untitled by breaking sights Awesome shot. Thanks for sharing.

Five things to start doing
in 2009

4. Do your homework. Devoted to working hard. Showing up with your A game, coming to play. Always going the extra mile and known for consistently doing what it takes without excuses. Being dedicated to creative collaboration. Having a deep understanding that execution is the ball game and knowing there's no substitute for doing your homework.

Congrats & cheers: Phil Hansen, official multimedia artist for the 51st Grammy Awards. CBS Radio programming ace Mark Edwards on his real-time updates, sharing pics and videos from backstage at the Grammys via Twitter.

Bonus: An Immodest Proposal - Or - Am I an Idiot For Paying iTunes for a Colbert Subscription? via MEDIATHINK here. Kudos to Tom Barnes. Word to the wise - put this blog in your reader. Highly recommended.

Have an amazing week.

"Difficulty is the nurse of greatness." William Cullen Bryant

"Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best." David McKay

"Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought." Thucydides

Today's image: an amiable split by Lorrie McClanahan. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Say it ain't so: WADV is the RAB streaming audio platform which will be dedicated to covering next week's Advertising Week V. WADV will be streaming a great many sessions next week however The Radio CEO Summit session will not be one of them. There is no good excuse for this. Yahoo! buys a full-page ad in the Advertising Week V program, the insertion is far-forward, check, it's left-facing, uh, ok, the ad copy uses a url that does not work, no, please, no! There is no good excuse.

Bonus: Marketing maven Tom Asacker offers his take on Microsoft's new Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfeld campaign, The Bill and Jerry Show w/videos, here. But wait, there's more...

Tom has also posted a new thought piece that you need to read and share with others on your team. A Little More Action..."turn up the volume of your childlike sense of wonder, compassion and rampant enthusiasm." Find the article here. Bravos, Tom. Spot-on.

Congrats & cheers: CBS Radio programming ace Mark Edwards and his KEZK team taking home the AC Station of the Year hardware from R&R and leader of the CBS Radio gang Dan Mason honored as Radio Group Executive of the Year. Others honored in the first round included Mike McVay, Ryan Seacrest, Tom Owens, Bob Call and Eileen Woodbury. MadTown's WJJO picked up Active Rock Station of the Year. Complete list of winners here.

"I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom." Anatole France

"Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceived." William Blake

"The first undertakers in all great attempts commonly miscarry, and leave the advantages of their losses to those that come after them." Samuel Butler

Today's image: Mile marker 13 by James. Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

All your platforms are belong to us

The allusion is, of course, to CATS. If you're thinking of the T.S. Eliot inspired work of that gifted (and knighted) Webber gentleman, sorry, wrong memory;) The provenance here is from earlier this century, the memetic phenomenon born of the Toaplan offering Zero Wing.

Allow me to suggest we are living in the early days of digital media's burgeoning wild west, the digital frontier. We may well have passed the "pong moment," gone beyond that certain boundary of no return into the event horizon. [I could again prove to be wrong in my timing here as is evident from this post made in August 2004 - so you know, more than one group head read that post and said to me back in 2004 "What sales crisis?"]. Today's cacophony and chaos is the new normal. Ambiguity rules. Innovation is messy and there is lots of wreckage in the fast lane.

One thing is certain, we are, each and all, at yet another point of making it up as we go along. We have reached a point where decisions matter and not making a decision is, as ever, deciding. Dear reader, please beware the so-called experts. Truth be known, questions matter far more than responses (there are no answers, no game-changing solution sets at this point). Let me further proffer some really important things are - as our Zero Wing example serves to illustrate - getting messed up, lost in translation. It's the repetition of the poor translation that is becoming potentially dangerous.

Platform agnostic

If social media has offered any early lesson it is one must learn, understand and respect being platform agnostic. I learned this lesson the hard way as an IBM Business Partner in the 1980s. Our software development firm created custom code that became the first effective paperless office solution for the Citibank credit card operation. What we failed to grok was this was actually a system to sell through the then cutting edge AS400 platform for IBM. D'oh! Those were the days when I first learned a great many marketing lessons from my Armonk colleagues. [Social media sidebar: LinkedIn, that little social network the majority never heard of is said to be billing over $100 mil this year with a market value of about $1 bil. Compare and contrast, 100 mil is the same amount of revenue that put Joel Hollander into a living hell when he lost Howard]

In today's case - audio - listeners could care less where it originates or how they capture it. They only care that it is the audio they want when they want it. They like it or they don't.

Once the technology becomes transparent (and, if you're a successful provider, it will be at some point) all that matters is the content. This comes down to grasping that you are living in two very different worlds. Today's waning economic engine, that is, the business of import. Tomorrow's new model, one not yet fully defined with business strategy, which is one of export. The yesterday being perpetuated by end stage money versus the brave new unknown world of tomorrow supported, presently, by what amounts to little more than the rounding errors on financial statements. Too many CEOs are declaring this to be a Hobson's choice and they're getting it all wrong. Many damn the economy and every other potential accomplice for their failing and changing world of import. At the same time they damn and preclude the concept of any serious investment in new tech and export beyond that very precise penny required to generate a press release or provide them with the opportunity to talk it up as innovation on their next quarterly call. These are the CEOs that continue to insist on bringing a knife to a gun fight. As my old friend Joseph L. Floyd used to say "Talk is cheap. Whiskey costs money."

Throwing in another allusion, these are the CEOs taking the blue pill and complaining when they should be choosing the red pill and taking the wild ride. This is at the core of our present day leadership problem. CEOs insist on doing just enough, the minimum required, to check the box but it's no longer enough to matter. Not enough to get into the new game at hand. The majority of broadcast sites and other digital efforts continue to suck. There is only one excuse and it's that too many CEOs still don't get it. These are the CEOs that have become the dead weight, they are the true enemies of progress, the people standing in the way, blocking the paths of future wealth creation. In my opinion, it's time to retire some jerseys, this must be done for the good of the game.

Fail faster!

Hint: The number of times your team has met to seriously discuss and argue the merits of VRM = How serious your team really is about the future. 0 = 0. The number of times your team has launched a new initiative, failed and started another new initiative = How serious your team is about innovation. 0 = 0. The number of experiments going on in each department = How serious your team is about reinvention. 0 = 0. Failing faster is the most effective way to succeed sooner. Remember what Bill Gates said "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." Keep in mind the advice of Steve Jobs "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

Readers of this blog will recall my long standing rant: All that matters is what comes out of the speakers and what's on the screen(s), everything else is a footnote.

Silver bullets not included: Bob Struble has posted a new entry at his web page...

"Like every other consumer medium, AM/FM must be digital, online and over the air. And the efforts are complimentary – streaming those HD2s helps educate listeners; it’s a good thing. And HD Radio implementation can drive web traffic. Neither initiative will right the ship alone, but both play a role in the solution."

My sense is it would be difficult not to understand what Bob is saying here. Hard to imagine anything getting lost in translation. Bob's remarks are spot-on. It's not either or, it's AND. If you only pick one or two platforms you are probably the kind of person that has developed a system for playing and winning the lottery. How's that going? All your platforms are belong to digital. Moreover, all your platforms are belong to the group(s) formerly known as the audience. All your assets must be digital and discoverable. The one exception going forward is that totally important analog audio platform that still needs extra special attention, care and feeding TFN. Your main channel is not some distraction, it's the oxygen keeping your team alive, or not. If you don't own a demo in Arbitron you still have major work to do.

Read Bob's post, Digital Over the Air and Digital Online: We Can Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time, here. Bravos, Bob. Well said. Now that Bob & company have delivered the technology, the digital weaponry, we need to get to work on crafting those silver bullets without which that cool tech solution don't mean diddly. iBiquity developed the OS, we need to develop the apps. The apps the thing(s).

Danger, Will Robinson: This is a re-feed of a previous transmission for those that may have missed it last week. If you are working for a CEO who is blaming the economy you need to plan your escape, you deserve to be working for a much smarter person.

Just saying: When a person selling you something claims to be on the cutting edge of what's next in digital, you know, the one bragging about being dialed-in to what's really happening out there, simply ask them "What's your nick on FriendFeed?" Then, check them out. Alternatively, ask them "What's in your reader?" Take a look at what they think is worth reading. Then decide if the relationship is worth chasing. Should they fail to understand either question? Click. Thank me later.

Thank you very much: Chicago TV legend, Merri Dee, leaves WGN. Merri inspired generations, her body of work is a credit to WGN and to the television profession. More here.

Bonus: The five C's of social media. Thanks and bravos to Colin Walker

Congrats & cheers: The IE team at Microsoft. While they are not (yet) getting credit for the reorg, these are the guys to watch. N=1 is still going all-in with Ozzie. CBS Radio programming ace Mark Edwards featured in the latest Rick Kaempfer Chicago Radio Spotlight, here. Thanks for the mention, Mark! Kudos to Rick on another fine piece.

Have a great week. Make something amazing happen.

"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?

"Change before you have to." Jack Welch

"When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. Look forward to your next objective." George C. Marshall

"Often you just have to rely on your intuition." Bill Gates

150 men showed up wearing high heels and ready to run. 50 men, selected at random, competed to win tickets to see Hannah Montana. It played out as The Y98 High Heel Derby. The Y98 Insane Promotion Posse staged yet another cool event.
Kudos to Courtney Landrum (her idea), Laura Hobson and Lindsey Wright (their execution). More pics at the Y98 site here. Related WaPo story here.

Success is not an accident: CBS Radio programming ace Mark Edwards is winning in St Louis because he understands the critical importance of being, and staying, in the moment. Doing that is hard work, doing that consistently, being known for it, that's the stuff of truly great performance art. As ever, Mark's stations are tight and right on time. In the just released summer numbers Y98 and KEZK dominate the female demos, they own prime. Moreover, they've earned it.

"Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered pot holder." Raymond Chandler

"Art is the only thing you cannot punch a button for. You must do it the old-fashioned way. Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises." Leontyne Price

"Employ in everything a certain casualness which conceals art and creates the impression that what is done and said is accomplished without effort and without its being thought about. It is from this, in my opinion, that grace largely derives." Baldassare Castiglione


The blog! The blog! How could I have forgotten about the blog?

My sincere thanks for all the emails. Much, too much, going on these days. All of it good. Lots of learning in progress here. Standby for email responses, still getting caught up. Again, thank you very much.

Each year at this time we are involved in several big projects. Personally, the count is now down to three talks remaining in my 2007 tour but, still, that's three more talks and each requires days of prep. Then there's the creation of our annual ad spend projection. The projection, alone, a full-time job for a bunch of people. It is also an honor to be invited to participate in the planning processes of clients and friends of the firm. Then, our little company is also in the middle of budget hell. Finally, the plan calls for me to write my new 2008 brief over six weeks beginning the first of December. The dear person who is booking the 08 brief talks (five or so engagements beginning in the winter) awaits the one-sheet, it remains in draft. Add time off for the holidays (and a short fall trip to the city is becoming a maybe). Which leaves, uh, less than the time needed to get everything done this year. The take away is homework matters.

Homework separates the winners from the losers.

Related - On reading plans: It is a joy to review a plan where the team has done their homework. Where the budget assumptions have full and credible support. Where every possible question is anticipated. The plan where nothing is left to chance. A plan that offers a fresh, positive view of the possible. It's not the plan, the end product of the activity that's important, it's the work obvious behind the planning itself, the activity.

The contrast between a team serious about doing the homework and a team that is serious about nothing more than delivering the paperwork on time could not be more blatant. The former are thinking, imagining, pushing to get the most out of next year. Their plans offer up more than one crazy idea, a long shot, a flyer, these folks are coloring outside the lines. The latter are going through the motions, they are driven by compliance, the narrative is flat, the numbers are just what everyone expected.

Wait a minute, why are we doing this?

For decades we have enjoyed the benefit of this exercise. Ask the staff to provide answers to the important question of WHY. An expense, once approved, rolls on and too often without question. It takes on a life (and inclusion in the budget) thanks to spreadsheet math.

One employee at a client was awarded a check for a serious amount, it represented 10% of the annual savings in our client's 2005 year-long Wait a minute, why are we doing this? program. The math works. The winning employee suggested management look into expenses that saved the company about $37K a small percentage of the program's total savings. However, that one employee's winnings provided the incentive for every other non-management employee to get involved in the 2006 program. And, it worked! 2006 year participation and suggestions were outstanding. This year the program is, again, doing great and next year our little project is being budgeted for company wide adoption. Get the troops into thinking "If this were my company..." and then reward them. They see things your managers are no longer able to see. They have great ideas, all you need to do is request, respect, recognize and reward.

Thanks to the wisdom of our clients we do compliment the savings program with an innovation program. Our counsel is we invest, redirect or reprogram a significant percentage of all savings into new initiatives. These are also the product of team suggestion and collaboration.

Homework. Engagement, creative collaboration involving every team member. No better ROI.

My most sincere thanks to our client for giving me permission to blog about this very successful ongoing program. (NOTE: I made changes in this post at the request of the client).

The soft stuff is key: CBS programming ace Mark Edwards weighs in via email...

"We don't manage ourselves nor our time as well as we should. We need to get better at that so we can make time for the stars of our show. Bottom line - we need to invest more time in our talent. The potential payoff is huge."

A very good point and excellent counsel. Thanks for sharing, Mark!

Congrats to Superjock: Uncle Lar to be inducted into the NAB's Hall of Fame. Robert Feder, Chicago's official media scribe headlines today's writing "Hats off to Larry" and shares the thoughts of Mr Lujack...

"As this will be my third and probably last Hall of Fame induction, I've decided, in my acceptance speech, to dump the phony gracious and fake humility bit and just be truthful for a change," he said Tuesday.

"I was, still am and always will be incredibly good, and frankly, I'm more than a little disappointed that it took the NAB this long to recognize that fact!

"Further, I am deserving of this honor because I've always subscribed to the NAB Code of Responsible Broadcasting. I have no idea what it's about -- but I've always subscribed."

Thanks Robert.

In the last century I once served as EP of the Windy Awards. The local radio association gave the awards to recognize excellence in radio creative. I took the one-off assignment with the condition that our MC would be Lujack. He killed, totally rocked the ballroom. I had the good sense never to accept the assignment again.

Reminder: We still need to get Bill Drake and Rick Sklar into the NAB Hall.

Quote worth thinking about, again: David Kilcullen military strategist. Smart guy who said "It's not engineering. It's extreme sport." Spot-on. That is exactly the pov. Ask yourself two questions, every single day, without fail:

What is happening now?

What do we do next?

Congrats & cheers: Programming ace John Mainelli tells it like it truly is, to wit...

"It is critical to coach, support, run interference for, critique and defend true talent every hour of every day. This is not a hobby. This is not for PDs who always go out for lunch, obsess with e-mail and message boards, meld with their telephones, or feather their nests with meetings and cronies.

It’s for the PD who is really the executive producer, 24/7, and who spends as much time in the studio, control room and producer pit as he does in his office.

Most importantly, this PD really has to like talk radio. It’s my opinion that too many talk PDs don’t really enjoy and/or understand the format they’re working in. Frankly, you have to be slightly unbalanced to really get into talk radio – to where you listen to it because you want to. And, yes, I am unbalanced, as many of you know."

More via Inside Radio here. Bravo, John! Well said. In my experience your show is only as good as your talent and your show runner and if you don't have a serious, obsessed show runner chances are you ain't got a show. Talent need directors (and a PD that serves, the great PD understands they work for the talent and are required to act as defense attorney from time to time. Being the advocate for talent is a very important additional duty). We still offer a one day workshop based on the monograph A Great Program Director. I am always amazed when someone walks up during a break and asks me to explain the slide that reads

"You're running an opera company, you don't tell Pavarotti to sing better"

"Zeal without knowledge is like fire without a grate to contain it; like a sword without a hilt to wield it by; like a high-bred horse without a bridle to guide him. It speaks without thinking, acts without planning, seeks to accomplish a good end without the adoption of becoming means." Julius Bate

"Experience is the universal mother of sciences." Miguel de Cervantes

"The use of a thing is only a part of its significance. To know anything thoroughly, to have the full command of it in all its appliances, we must study it on its own account, independently of any special application." Goethe

Brilliant on the basics: CBS Radio's Mark Edwards pulled one out of the Gordon McLendon playbook yesterday. A totally unexpected stunt. His KEZK "Christmas in July" food drive generated big word of mouth, created awareness for the St Louis area foodbank, encouraged online foodbank donations and generated earned media. KMOV (CBS), KTVI (Fox) both sent shooters to the station and ran packages in their 10 shows. Kudos to Mark & crew. Ryan Farmer also gets a nod, the KEZK marketing maven came up with the idea. Bravo Ryan.

Holding a clinic on great radio: Jerry Schnacke is doing an outstanding job leading the Bonneville Chicago stations. WTMX and WDRV are two of the best stations in the nation. WTMX creator Barry James continues to build the groups third property, Love FM (WILV). The Bonneville Chicago team deserves high marks for doing things right.

Irrational exuberance redux: R.H. Donnelley buys business.com domain name for $345Mil.

Congrats & cheers: Doug Podell, the Doc of Rock, and his WRIF team on another great book. Eric & Kathy, WTMX, continuing to set the gold standard in Chicago morning radio. Johnny B getting it done for Emmis in Chicago and delivering an excellent book. Steve Mitgang named chief executive of Veoh Networks.

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." Jeff Valdez

"Dogs have owners, cats have staff." Johnny Martin

Congrats & cheers: CBS programming ace Mark Edwards makes history. After 31 years and 125 books in a row of being #1 in St Louis, KMOX shares #1 for the first time. Mark's KEZK matches KMOX's Winter 7.6, well deserved bravos to Mark and his team! 2006 finalists for The Livingston Awards. The honor goes to journos under the age of 35. Wireless noms include Charles Michael Ray, Guy Raz, and Laura Sullivan. From the wired world Brian Rokus and Will Evans. The complete list of finalists here.

Good reads: Highly recommended additions to my current reading. Fiction - Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Amazon info here. Non-Fiction - David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous. Review by Cory Doctorow here. Amazon info here. James L. Baughman, Same Time Same Station. Creating American Television, 1948-1961. Amazon info here.

On references: From emails concerning my previous posts on hiring. The best, most valuable, references are a mix of supervisors and subordinates. In my experience actually talking with references provided by candidates is a good starting point. Ask the candidate their reason for using each person as a reference. Align these with the work history. Is each job covered by a reference? Understanding these to be the most positive we can still gain valuable insight by asking the right questions. Use a mix of open and closed ended questions. For example, using Ed as the name of our candidate. What four words best describe Ed? Let the reference provide you with the four words and then ask them to explain why they used each. What are Ed's greatest strengths? What things should Ed focus on to become a better (insert job title)? Ask supervisors if they would hire Ed again and why, ask subordinates if they would work for Ed again and why. Ask why should we hire Ed? What should we know about Ed that he is probably not going to tell us? Why did Ed use you as a reference? Using your ideal candidate description create a list of ten attributes key to success in the position. Ask the reference to score Ed for each attribute using a scale of one to ten where ten is the best score. End the call by asking the reference to provide the names of two other people you can call about Ed. When interviewing those two ask for the name of one more reference. Keep handy an alpha list by last name of the references. If a name is given to you more than once make a note of that and ask for another until you get one not on your list. Take careful notes. Look for patterns.

On interviewing: Before the interview have the candidate provide you with a detailed work history. On the first interview allow the candidate to do 80% of the talking. Do not use the first interview to sell the company or the position. Use the first interview to get as much information about the candidate as possible. Let the candidate talk. Use your time to ask questions and probe to get more detailed answers. Ask the candidate to tell you about their greatest success. Should this be something personal (spouse, kids, dream home, etc) follow up asking about their greatest career success. Do frame the question. Tell me a success story, one that if I checked it out and talked to everyone involved, everyone would agree that you played an important role in the achievement? What did you learn? Tell me about your biggest failure? What did you learn? What are your greatest strengths? What areas do you need to focus on to be a better (insert job title)? Tell me about your favorite boss. What do you respect about them? Tell me about the best job you've had in your career. Tell me about the boss that disappointed you most. We've all had at least one bad job, tell me about your worst career experience. Have you ever been fired? If yes, what did you learn? Using the work history ask the candidate to tell you about each experience. Ask the candidate why they left each position. If they tell you they were fired ask them to tell you about how and why that happened. If I were to talk to every boss you have had what three words would they all agree best describes you? If I were to talk to every subordinate that has ever worked for you what three words would they all agree best describes you? If I asked the person closest to you to describe you in one sentence what would they say? Whom do you respect or admire most in our industry? Why is that? Why do you want to work for us? What do you know about our company and our situation? What makes us a good fit? Again, take careful notes.

In sum, the best counsel is listen more and talk significantly less. Listen critically during the interview and reference checking process.