"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation." Jean Kerr

"You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself." Mel Brooks

"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." Fred Shero

Today's image: And the Road Goes On Forever by Thomas Hawk. Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Memorial Day
Help our troops and help their families.
Please, join me and give what you can
USO

Inspired by The Power of Pull by Hagel, Brown and Davison, today's post is a follow-on to my last post, here. This is the second in a series. From the book's introduction...

"It's quickly dawning on us...our education was at best a thin foundation
that needs to be continually refreshed in order for us to stay competitive.

The stress in our professional lives bleeds over into our personal lives as we find ourselves working longer hours and as long-standing relationships are disrupted by unexpected events...Incumbents at the core - which is the place where most of the resources, especially people and money, are concentrated, and where old ways of thinking and acting still hold sway - have many fewer incentives to figure out the world, or to discover new ways of doing things, or to find new information. They're on top, and they're ready to keep doing what got them there. But simply accessing or attracting static resources no longer cuts it. Accessing and attracting have little value unless they are coupled with a third set of practices that focus on driving performance rapidly to new levels. These practices involve participation in, and sometimes orchestration of, something we call 'creation spaces' - environments that effectively integrate teams within a broader learning ecology so that performance improvement accelerates as more participants join."

The authors suggest we are witness to a value migration from the "experience curve" to the "collaboration curve."

Answering the earlier call for "flow" we have the recommendations of another in my flow, Tom Webster. My thanks to Tom.

Justin Kownacki
Altitude Branding
Convince & Convert
in over your head
Six Pixels of Separation
Brian Solis

More from my flow. Three broadcasting (radio) blogs worth your bandwidth and three daily emails for you to consider.

Blogs/RSS:

jacoBLOG
The Infinite Dial
RAIN: Radio and the Internet Newsletter


Daily email newsletters, solid day-starters:

The Slatest
Mike Allen's Playbook
Hugh's Daily Cartoon

Who's in your flow? Please do get in touch with your suggestions. Thank you.

A word to the wise: It's no longer an option. You (and your stations) should be on Twitter. If you are, please consider this your written invitation to follow (@martindave), you have my pledge to follow back. Should you not be Twittering, why not? What exactly are you waiting for? Jump in! Getting started: Complete your profile including pic, link and bio. Tweet! Twitter tips: 1. Be yourself 2. Read replies, respond, engage. 3. Share the good stuff, RT and link 4. Manners matter, be nice. 5. Have fun.

Closed circuit to Jeff Haley: Join the conversation! Ready, willing and able to assist you in making the most of social networks including Twitter.

Congrats & cheers: All honored by Ad Age Magazine in their 2010 Entertainment A-List. The top five: Sony Pictures, Justin Bieber, Blind Side, Clear Channel, and The Beatles, Rock Band. Writing about Clear Channel, Ad Age says "Exec VP Evan Harrison's iHeartRadio makes Clear Channel a breeding ground for discovering new artists and a top earner in digital revenue" $175 million gross (SNL Kagan, 2009). 22 million monthly uniques at iHeartRadio.com

Bravos: The legendary Paulie Gallis on his latest lunch meet in Chicago. We had a great time gathered at Tavern at the Park. Attending were Mark Edwards, Brian Kelly, Tom Teuber, Kurt Hanson, John Gehron, Dan Kelley, Jim Scully, Dick Rakovan, Kipper McGee, Mike Shied, and Doug Dahlgren.



Summer reads: first in a series, the latest from N=1 fav Clay Shirky (non-fiction). From the publisher's release...

"The potential impact of cognitive surplus is enormous. As Shirky points out, Wikipedia was built out of roughly 1 percent of the man-hours that Americans spend watching TV every year. Wikipedia and other current products of cognitive surplus are only the iceberg's tip. Shirky shows how society and our daily lives will be improved dramatically as we learn to exploit our goodwill and free time like never before."

Pre-order: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky. [Amzn info]

Got a summer read to recommend? Please share in comments.

Bonus: Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution. Daniel Pink & Clay Shirky via Wired Magazine, here. "...organizations that are founded to solve problems end up committed to the preservation of the problems." - Shirky

Learn more, earn more: The Conclave's Summer Learning Conference happens July 15-17, in Minneapolis. Rock radio maven Fred Jacobs and his Jacobs Media team kick off Conclave's 35th year with a new annual learning event, Jacobs Media Summer School. Just added: Jerry Clifton's Night School. More info and online registration, here. Being involved behind the scenes provides me with some unique insider knowledge. Let's just say Conclave 2010 is one you do not want to miss. FD: I serve as an unpaid director on the Conclave board.

Must-read of the month: May: State of Play by B. Kite Pt 1. Some notes on the growing pains of gaming culture, here. Pt 2. Considering the artistic future of video games, here.

Enjoy or endure

Sir Ken Robinson returned to TED this year. Sir Ken's talk is an outstanding follow-on to his last TED appearance. His thesis is we make very poor use of our talents. His suggestion is there are two groups of people in the business world. Those who enjoy what they do and those who endure and wait for the weekend. For those that enjoy their work, it's not what they do, it's who they are. Note to leaders: job one is to create the conditions for achievement. Check out his wonderful new Ted Talk: Bring on the learning revolution!




Have an amazing week. Thank you for stopping by. Your thoughts via comments and email are always welcome and appreciated.

"Thank God for screw-ups, for if life had adhered strictly to six sigma rules, we’d all still be slime." Gary Hamel

"Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation." Rosabeth Moss Kanter

"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to management than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely the lukewarm defense in those who gain by the new ones." Nicolo Machiavelli

Today's image: canal by Banksy. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

It's the top line, stupid.

Broadcast leadership continues to be obsessed with tweaking the numerator.

My sense is too many are still keeping score like it's 1999. Preoccupied with optimization they continue to fail because they do not yet appreciate the critical importance of recognizing and unlocking the incredible value inherent in attempts at bold innovation. Truth be known, playing around with numerator has reached beyond the point of diminishing returns. To be blunt, optimization strategies for broadcast operators are well past their best used by date. Attention and resources continue to be invested in getting better at a game that is less and less relevant. Over the past ten years every department (and related function mission systems) at broadcast stations has fundamentally changed with one exception - sales. Proof of this abounds. Any candid accounting of results produced will tend to support this assertion. Let me suggest the best (and most important) evidence may be found by talking with buyers. How has the "broadcast buying experience" changed? How does this experience stack up when compared to other media options?

If you always do what you've always done,
you'll get what you've always gotten

Permit me to invoke an old saw from Zig Ziglar "Two sure ways to fail. Think and never do or do and never think." Broadcast leadership appears to have cornered the market on both. Enough! My thought (confirmed by recent experience) is the new game is getting really serious about changing the denominator. Sales development - the hard work of driving new top lines. Getting fresh and creative in perspective and approach. Experimentation. Discovery. Learning how to respect, appreciate and reward the art of failing faster in order to succeed sooner.

On the day job we have observed the best "return on imagination" begins with unvarnished discussion concerning the creation of new markets rather than the same old fights over how to grow an increasingly irrelevant metric - silo share of a declining market. Going to work to kill the guy across the street is simply not an effective strategy in driving top line development and the entire ball game is, plainly, to continually, consistently and creatively develop the top line without any excuse. To develop your top line you'll need to invest in developing your people.

Invite and encourage cognitive diversity in your organization

Paul Jacobs offers a writing that merits the attention of radio and TV leadership. Follow The (Shrinking) Money - his post on the Jacobs Media blog, is a call to action, to wit:

"...if we don't make major moves in our sales and marketing
strategies, we're in real trouble"

Read Paul's entire post, here. Kudos to Paul, he is right on the money. He presents a well-reasoned case for changing up the game and getting into a whole new reality, the competition that is measured media fighting for dollars at the dawn of the 21st century mediascape.

Congrats and cheers: Robert Feder, by far the best and brightest writer of his generation to cover the media beat, has returned. His new home is Vocalo.org, a new media venture of the Chicago Public Radio folks. More, in his own words, here. Welcome to the conversation, Rob. You've been missed.

Bonus: Cool kid Mary Meeker and her colleagues at Morgan Stanley delivered an important presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit. You may access the PDF of their presentation - Economy + Internet Trends - here. Bravos to Mary and the Morgan gang on a job well done.

Oldie but goodie: Malcolm Gladwell from 2004 on spaghetti sauce. Thanks, as ever, to TED.

"No one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care." Jerry McGee

"Hire slowly. Fire quickly. It's not the people you fire that hurt you. It's the people you don't fire." Marcio Moreira

"Don't get intimidated by the world out there. Most people don't have a clue." Dennis Scully

Today's image: Banksy by Martin in London. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing.

Please take 16:31 to watch today's video feature. It's a wonderful talk by Beau Lotto, the founder of Lottolab studio. Opticial illusions show how we see. My thanks, as always, to TED.

"Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's really out there."

"Why is context everything?"

No one is an outside
observer of nature

Each of us is defined
by our ecology

...ecology is necessarily
relative, historical and empirical

"Entrepreneurship is throwing yourself off a cliff, and building a plane on the way down." Reid Hoffman

"One of the greatest gifts the Internet gives us is the ability to learn to be wrong quickly." - Avinash Kaushik

"A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point." Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Today's image: My Finest Hour by [ lee ]. Great storytelling; wonderful! Thank you for sharing.

On the road. World Tour 2009 continues. Giving three talks this week, presenting my brief on social media.

Congrats and cheers: Another outstanding presentation by Clay Shirky. Thanks, as always, to TED. Bravos to Clay. [Hint to readers: Please do share this one with the A students on your team. Highly recommended.]





Bonus: Q&A with Clay Shirky on Twitter and Iran via TEDBlog.

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be." Abraham Lincoln

"It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." Theodore Roosevelt

Today's image: Abe by ~bear. Great shot. Thank you for sharing.

Happy Presidents' Day. Have an amazing week.

C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership. Total scores/Overall ranking...

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. Theodore Roosevelt
5. Harry S. Truman
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Dwight D. Einsenhower
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Ronald Reagan

Entire ranking here.

Bonus: Barry Schwartz @ TED. The real crisis? We stopped being wise...

"Life is a school of probability." Walter Bagehot

"Nothing succeeds like address." Fran Lebowitz

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." Maya Angelou

Today's image: As Autumn turns to Winter by Southernpixel. Great pic. Thanks for sharing.

WORK, LOVE, PLAY

Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about balance in life. She's a gifted storyteller and shares stories in today's video about leadership with lessons from presidents Lincoln and Johnson. Invest 18:48 of your day. Highly recommended. My thanks, as always, to TED for sharing.

Congrats & cheers: Rock programming ace Fred Jacobs joins the conversation on Twitter (hint: Fred come and join the big kids on FriendFeed). My beautiful, incredible wife on the celebration of the fourth anniversary of her exceptionally successful adventures in retail.

Next: My thoughts on what media CEOs must do now to prevail in 2009 and more on cognitive process as it relates to advertising.

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." Edgar Allan Poe

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." Walt Disney

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Aldous Huxley

Today's image: La mar by toalafoto. Great shot. Thank you for sharing.

What is your mission?

Homework: Above is the mission of Facebook. This is the slide used by Mark Zuckerberg during his f8 keynote. [Image credit: (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us.]. How does your mission compare? What are you giving people? How is your organization helping to make the world more open and connected?

The show: Lennart Green holds a clinic on performance art, amazing close-up magic @ TED.

"The most effective way to cope with change is to help create it." L.W. Lynett

"Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light." Kahil Gibran

"The rewards in business go to the man who does something with an idea." William Benton

Today's image: Contro il muro by morillo. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Summer reads: Get Amazon info clicking the title. Motoring with Mohammed by Eric Hansen. Hansen is a first-rate travel writer, fun reading. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Science fiction in the tradition of Wyndham Lewis and Mervyn Peake. Amazing. Buying In by Rob Walker. The Timesman we love for writing the column "Consumed" in the NYT Magazine favors us with a book "The secret dialogue between what we buy and who we are." Just like the column only better. Personality not included by Rohit Bhargava. "Why companies lose their authenticity - and how great brands get it back." The Myths of the North American Indians by Lewis Spence. First published in 1914, insight into Native-American culture that is part ethnography, part history. Enjoying all of these - highly recommended.

David Pogue has been booked to keynote this fall's NAB Radio Show. Today's video is David presenting at TED. When it comes to tech, simplicity sells

"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know." Mark Twain

"The secondhandedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity." Alfred North Whitehead

"Learning is a treasury whose keys are queries." Arabian proverb

Today's image: Sitting, waiting, wishing by NebulskiN. Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

Bonus: One Person Trend Stories. Priceless.

Kubler-Ross, measured media edition: The five stages of grief. 1. Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance. Where is your organization?

"As with the printing press. If it's really a revolution it doesn't take us from point A to point B. It takes us from point A to chaos. The printing press precipitated two hundred years of chaos." Clay Shirky @ TED on institutions vs. collaboration. Start video below; highly recommended.

Have a wonderful weekend. See you next week in a brand new show.

"True affection is a body of enigmas, mysteries and riddles, wherein two so become one that they both become two." Thomas Browne

"The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself." Plato

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong." Arthur C. Clarke

Today's image: Ballet by Face it. Simply wonderful. Thanks for sharing.

Bonus: DIY Yahoo! Resignation Letter

Congrats & cheers: Ian Rogers launches Topspin Media.

Julie Taymor @ TED: Theater and the imagination. Amazing. Enjoy your weekend!

"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must." Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains." Thomas Carlyle

"Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way." William James

Today's image: Surfing's Finished by Ponder. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Bonus: If you Twitter you'll enjoy this.

Michael Moschen at TED: Juggling rhythm and motion. Behold, visual music. "A moment of learning." Amazing!

"It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them." Man Ray

"Only from the entirely old can the entirely new be born." Bela Bartok

"Getting caught is the mother of invention." Robert Byrne

Today's image: Firestarter by TravelingRoths. Very interesting capture. Thanks for sharing.

Smart dead tree guy shares wisdom

Let's start our own fire this week with two stories and a jump worth your bandwidth...



Three women walked into a public restroom to find the water running. They complained loudly and continuously about the horrible people who left that faucet on. They kvetched about the insensitivity of the horrid perpetrators. On and on they griped. What, indeed, was the world coming to?

A fourth woman walked into the restroom, looked at the running faucet, and turned it off.

There are complainers in this world and there are doers.

Second story...


Recently, a friend of mine told me a story about Mike who went to Seattle to visit a friend. Mike encountered an old priest who got up early every morning, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and walked downtown and gave them to the homeless.

Mike was moved by the old priest’s good works. So when he got home Mike wrote the priest a check and sent it to him saying it was to help his ministry. A few weeks later Mike got the check back in the mail with a note written on the check – “make your own damn sandwiches.”

These stories are taken from a speech delivered to dead tree circulation execs. Newspaper circulation leaders need to make their own sandwiches was the wake up call by Tim McGuire. Now at Arizona State, Tim previously served as editor and SVP at The Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Here's a bit more...


"Newspapers as we know them have a problem. It is a big, nasty, transformational problem. Arguments about whether it could have been avoided are the territory of second-guessers with too much time on their hands. The fact is newspapers have this problem because the world marches on.

All products have life cycles and the golden age of the newspaper product was from the 1950’s through the mid-to late 90’s. There is a lot of loose talk about newspapers being dinosaurs. If that is true, the meteor hit newspapers in the mid-90’s. It’s called the Internet."

One could easily subsitute "Broadcasters" for newspapers. One could and you should. Here's the advertised jump. If you read just one item today, click only on one link today, please let me recommend this one. You'll thank me later. Read and send a link to those you know who are serious about making something happen. Bravos, Tim! Well said.

Get social: Google bows Friend Connect - an app that helps to make any site social. Conference call today (12:30 pm Eastern) to discuss, replay available. Kudos to team Google. More info here.

Bonus video: Mark Williamson, Dash Technologies at Web 2.0 must see video. Congrats and cheers to Rob Curry on a very cool presentation. Jump to blip.tv here, use the right nav to find and view the video by Mark Williamson. While you're there check out Google's Matt Cutts - he offers an excellent talk on spam.

Podcasts - Best of: Hugh and the Rabbi, Episode 4 (Audio, MP3). Good show guys! The Gillmor Gang, on decentralized Twitter (Audio, MP3). Great discussion, follow-on to an earlier cast on Twitter, FriendFeed, and other Live Web apps. Kudos, Steve, well done.

Buzz: BlackBerry Bold. 60 Photography Links You Can't Live Without via Cameraporn - thanks to the uber-cool Thomas Hawk for the tip.

Congrats & cheers: Chris Anderson & team TED on the smash that was Pangea Day. [Related - highlight reel]

"There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action." Camus

"Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better." John Updike

"A lazy man is never lucky." Persian proverb

Today's image: Colors_II by gabsriel. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing.

Steal This Stuff

Readers of this humble blog are aware, posts here typically start with an image and three quotations, usually ending one or more items later.

Each day it's a work in progress. As things are discovered (or thought) they're added. It's a process not an event.

So, I'm talking with the legendary Fred Winston. He's just back from giving a talk in Nashville where he addressed radio programming execs. His talk was about coaching, getting the best out of talent and making amazing things happen on the radio. Subject matter about which he is a world-class expert (Fred happens to be, in his own right, an incredibly gifted talent, exceptional voice actor and inspirational coach).

"It all comes down to the basics. The fundamentals, blocking and tackling" Fred tells me.

So later, I'm talking with a CEO, my client on the day job. He's just back from a planning session for their upcoming senior leadership retreat.

"We would like you to give us another 'One hour Martinizing' and need a title for your talk. Got any ideas?"

After a few seconds of hesitation I say "Blocking and Tackling."

So, there I am, at 35,000 feet, heading home, reflecting on this week's guest blogs by Kelly O'Keefe and Joel Denver. Then, it becomes obvious. When you boil it all down, the eloquent words of Kelly, the unvarnished wisdom of Joel...it's blocking and tackling.

Time to outline the upcoming talk.

Use the best format, the one experience has taught me is the most effective...

Prep conversation > Have conversation > Encourage transfer of conversation

Prep: Send materials to those attending that gets them into the mindset of the conversation

Conversation: Deliver the talk in an interactive fashion

Encourage: Follow-up conversation with materials that prompt thought and action on the job

The goal of every talk given is exactly the same - make something happen back on the job. If something happens back on the job then the talk was a win, if not then it's a loss. A purely digital equation. One or zero. W or L.

So, back in the office, talking with serial entrepreneur and marketing ace Lee Arnold. A master storyteller, Lee shares a lesson and concludes "Getting it done was really all about being great, really great at blocking and tackling."

Lesson of the week: Blocking and tackling wins.

So, here are some of the items being considered for the prep portion of my upcoming talk. These are basics, fundamentals, the blocking and tackling stuff. My notion is you can put these to good use, make them your own. Please, steal them.

For the past five years John Spence, executive educator, consultant and speaker, has been working on his next book. In process, he now offers a fine article titled Achieving Business Excellence. John provides a list of six keys to success...

1. Vivid vision: A clear and well-thought-out vision of what you are trying to create that is exceptionally well communicated to everyone involved. A true vision is an exciting, focused, realistic and inspiring picture of what you and your people are all trying to accomplish together - it's the reason you come to work every day, the impact you want to make on the world, the kind of company and product you aspire to build.

2. Best people: Superior talents who are also masters of collaboration. The future of your company is directly tied to the quality of talent you can attract and keep. "...talent that does not play well with others is not talent." You need to put in the systems, processes and programs necessary to build a product pipeline that delivers a steady stream of bright, sharp, creative and hardworking people.

3. A performance-oriented culture: One that demands flawless operational execution, encourages constant improvement and innovation, and completely refuses to tolerate mediocrity or lack of accountability. The #1 issue that inhibits execution: Holding onto the past/unwillingness to CHANGE. "Once you start accepting mediocrity in your life, you become a magnet for mediocrity in your life."

4. Robust communication: Open, honest, frank and courageous, both internally and externally. Great companies do everything in their power to maximize the Voice Of the Customer (VOC).

5. A sense of urgency: The strong desire to get the important things done while never wasting time on the trivial.

6. Extreme customer focus: Owning the voice of the customer and delivering what customers consider truly valuable.

Read John's entire article Achieving Business Excellence by downloading or viewing in your browser via the free PDF here. Kudos, John. Well done.

But wait, there's more...

Hugh MacLeod, ad exec, uber-cool blogger, soon to be published author and official artiste of N=1 offers his 26 tried-and-true tips for being truly creative. Here are the first six...

1. Ignore everybody

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world

3. Put the hours in

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail

5. You are responsible for your own experience

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten

Read Hugh's How To Be Creative by downloading or viewing in your browser via the free PDF here. Bravos, Hugh. Well said.

My thanks to ChangeThis for both of these offerings.

Congrats & cheers: Cory Bergman joins MSNBC.com as director of biz dev. Peter Burton and Dave Beasing join Bonneville in LA.

My sincere appreciation and thanks, a tip of the chapeau to Fred Winston, Kelly O'Keefe, Joel Denver and Lee Arnold for their contributions this week. Thanks to my client for the opportunity and the challenge to make something happen. Finally, thanks to you for stopping by.

Don't even tell me that you are reading this before you checked out Spence and MacLeod. Scroll back up and please deal with it, now. I'll wait here. Thanks.

Bonus: "All science is either physics or stamp collecting" Physicist Brian Cox speaks at TED




See you next week in a brand new show. Remember Mom. "My mom was fair. You never knew whether she was going to swing with her right or her left" - Herb Caen. Have a wonderful weekend.

"Indecision may or may not be my problem." Jimmy Buffett

"Culture is simply how one lives and is connected to history by habit." Le Roi Jones

"What I have crossed out I didn't like. What I haven't crossed out I'm dissatisfied with." Cecil B. De Mille

Today's image: Windy Desert by papa'rocket. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing.

Does radio clustering dampen station performance?
Are the economies of the cluster working against realization of asset potential?

Today, at least in major market radio, the performance of the cluster appears, more often than not, to count for more than individual station performance. Indeed the conventional wisdom seems to suggest that the cluster affords operators the ability to rationalize one or more failed or marginal niche performers than pre-cluster days. Economies of scale and the arithmetic of aggregation permit the ratings laggard to be kept around on a kind of artificial respiration so goes the argument but is any such bean counting enabled life support actually hurting the industry?

A stand alone posting a 1.5 share would likely be a cash user and not be allowed to survive, the prudent courses being fix it or/and sell it. That same failed station could be viable as part of a cluster and made to reach an accounting breakeven almost immediately. Has this cluster mindset created something of a plenary indulgence? The luxury of shifting focus and measures less and less on the individual station and more and more on the collective, the so-called portfolio. This argument reasons that cluster economics sanctions the value of each station's ratings delivery in additive terms only. The bottom line here is clusters do enjoy more rating point throw weight per avail. What's perhaps lost in accepting this mindset is realization of asset full potential. Further, the case can be made that there's a possible unintended consequence - we may be reducing the market value of avails (e.g., using our sick - or least popular - kid to bring in the buy or surrender to the enticement of selling for share).

What may have begun in practices of some major market duopoly operators has been exaggerated by clustering in the majors. It's considered acceptable to employ a second station as protector of the mother ship (i.e., a flanker) allowing that second station to post a modest, less than full potential performance. The reasoning being the 1.5 share of the second when added to the 3.5 of the franchise not only yields a 5 share but creates a realistic barrier to entry as well. Some have employed a "ratings robber" strategy, targeting a competitor with the purpose being to stunt or limit the competitor's performance. One improves performance in relative or comparative terms by hurting the other guy. Duopoly and clustering become zero sum games.

So what then of the somewhat popular suggestion that clustering has created, enabled more failed or marginal performers? Let's look at San Francisco. Comparing Spring 1991 v Spring 2007 Arbitron data, all stations posting 1.0 or better...

Number of stations: '91 - 31, '07 - 28
Mean share, 12+: '91 - 2.59, '07 - 2.40
Percentage of stations posting 1.0 - 1.9: '91 - 38.7%, '07 - 39.2%
Percentage of stations posting 1.0 - 2.9: '91 - 70.9%, '07 - 67.8%

One must concede, absent any discussion of share compression, the data has remained fairly stable. No cluster as evil smoking gun in evidence.

Getting down to the grits: Let's use one operator, CBS Radio, for purposes of illustration only. In the Spring 91 book KCBS delivered a 5.2, KRQR a 2.3, a collective 7.5 share. In the Spring 07 book, KCBS 3.9, KITS 1.6, KLLC 1.8, KMVQ 1.4, KFRC 0.9, a collective 9.6 share. The real economic power of clustering is, of course, in the avails; CBS has acquired 2.5 times as many since the Spring of 91 when CBS offered 48 hours of avails per day whereas today they offer 120 hours daily. Moreover, there's a new and growing abundance of avails today, a potential for wealth creation not around in the last century (e.g., HD Radio spectrum, online).

Would it be possible for any of these CBS FM stations to survive as a stand alone? This question brings us to the matter of asset potential. What is the potential in ratings, revenue and profit for each of these FM stations? How can any gap between performance and potential be closed? My sense is the CBS Radio team in San Francisco is giving it their best shot.

Some key questions on execution: Should we allow perfectly good full-market signals to deliver less than their full potential? Should we tolerate what could be reasonably judged to be continued failure without consequence or sense of urgency? And the list goes on. Should we adopt the jockless music format launch as best practice and the new default industry standard? Accept as demode market-changing (demo ranker reordering) ratings debuts by newly formatted stations? It all depends on how one defines success.

My thought is while the big questions have remained the same, the acceptable answers have changed. The cluster makes us do it or at least allows us to. My take is the cluster buys time for programmers, reducing the economic stress and pressures on near-term ratings performance. Further, the cluster may be exactly the safe harbor needed to spark genuine product innovation in the most competitive of markets like San Francisco. The cluster provides the blessing of precious development time, time a stand alone can ill afford (rare exceptions, outliers, do exist, Bonneville's entry into LA, format launch is one recent example). Accordingly, cluster management should step up and take a flyer. The risk management calculus has never been more favorable for bold innovation. To succeed sooner we must begin learning how to fail faster. Dare to emulate Lt. Col. Frank Slade and embrace the audacity of saying "I'm in the amazing business." Make something happen.

To be certain there are clear and present dangers here. Getting caught up in the inertia of complacency, accepting what is rather than demanding what could be. Giving in to the strategic trap of optimization, that is, wasting time trying to get better rather than discovering productive ways to get dramatically different. Saving our way to success (the losing game of reduced expectation) and in the process failing to make the disciplined investments required to compete for the future.

On balance, my suggestion is we are living in a new sweet spot for radio and all measured media; opportunity abounds! The only limitation is our imagination. Game on!

Congrats & cheers: Ann Compton, her WHCA team, C-SPAN, and Craig Ferguson on a very entertaining White House correspondents dinner. One of Ferguson's many memorable lines "Canada: the apartment above the party." Radio programming ace Lester St James joins Clear Channel, Omaha. BBC and Terry Jones for showing us how to effectively promote a media player - check it out via YouTube here. Brilliant!

Bonus: Amy Tan @ TED - Where does creativity hide?

"Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable." Rene Daumal

"The true leader is always led." Carl Jung

"The honest man must be a perpetual renegade." Charles Peguy

Today's image: About love in Rome by nebe. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Radio programming ace Phil Hall has joined the conversation and started a blog. We can all learn something from this exceptionally bright gentleman. Phil writes...

"Its the content. Its about the content. No where is that addressed except in the broadest of terms like diversified formats.

Content is why FM dominated AM. Content is why Howard Stern got and deserved the great Sirius deal, and its why people remember the colorful Harry Carey, Jack Buck, and Vin Scully while disregarding competent but less colorful game callers like Eric Nadel. One of radio’s premiere times was(is) a Vin or Harry or Jack called game. You could see the players, the horizon, and the field. In color! The magic of those broadcasts was the understanding they had for the way the fans felt about the team and viewed the game itself. They understand their audience...If we’re in this for the long haul we better get back to the basics of understanding the audience. Maybe even better understand who the audience isn’t. The audience isn’t one single person who does not live in your market."

Bravos, Phil! Well said. Put Phil's blog Have A Fine Broadcast Day! in your reader; read his entire post - Radio Heard Here!

Video: Ron Chapman toasts 103.7 KVIL. Kudos, Ron.

Buzz: Presdo (Blog). CBS Radio's play.it (now in private beta) Woman's World, fiction by Graham Rawle (vsl review)

Bonus: Terry Heaton - A Reasonable View of Tomorrow


Yochai Benkler @ TED. Information, knowledge and culture. Well worth the bandwidth. Have a great weekend.

"You're much more likely to do well if you start out to do something feasible instead of something that isn't feasible. Isn't that perfectly obvious?"

"You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don't, you're going to lose."

"In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time - none, zero." Charles T. Munger

Today's image: The fir tree of Grazalema by mrtriggerfinger. Amazing shot. Thank you for sharing.

All three of today's quotes are from a really smart guy you've probably never heard of. He's the longtime business partner of the guy you've certainly heard of, the world's richest man, Warren E. Buffett. Charlie Munger is wiser than a tree full of owls.

Today's video is some powerful storytelling about your brain. The video is from one of the most talked about sessions at this year's TED. Let me introduce to you Jill Bolte Taylor

"Restless is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress." Thomas Edison

"The best and most solid work was done in the wilderness of minority." Gandhi

"Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." Theodore Roosevelt

Today's image: untitled by Lo Zingaro. Beautiful. Thank you very much.



Dead tree & broadcast reduced: Kimberly-Clark expects to spend on 46% of its budget on TV this year, down from 60% in 2004. Related AdAge story. Image: Adage.

Dean Singleton speaking at this weeks NAA Marketing Conference..."Giving ourselves a bad image is a problem. It's part of our DNA, and readers don't care what is going on in the newsroom. We over-report it. If we need to downsize newsrooms, we maybe should start with the media reporters."

Video: My Damn Channel's You Suck at Photoshop #7. Congrats to Rob Barnett and crew! One of this week's top favs on YouTube.

Getting it right: Tom Asacker teaches us how to "prejudge any ad or other piece of marcom" in four steps...

"1. See the flower.

The first thing an ad must do is grab the attention of the audience. Therefore it must be different; different enough that the audience pauses and says, "Huh? What's that?" This is difficult to do with a TV ad. We tend to multi task with the television humming in the background."

Read Tom's entire post here. Kudos, Tom! Breaking through, capturing attention, getting them to pay attention really is job one, the first critically important hurdle in messaging.

The early line: Reed Business Information pubs could fetch $2B (via Folio).

Pls make note of it: Scoble's soon to be new home. Hey Robert, set up your feed, please.

Beating the deceased: Page Views Are Dead

Bonus: Frrvrr. I heart those Onion guys.

Congrats & cheers: Fred Jacobs and his Jacobs Media gang, celebrating another jacoBLOG birthday, it's a blog that matters; thanks, Fred. Christina Glorioso named VP Sales & Marketing Partnerships, MTVN (Program Enterprises Group) - smart. Chris Anderson and crew on the eve of another TED - preview (blog). Tim Russert for the last question last night, getting Hillary to talk about the vote, well played, TR.