"Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind." Louis Pasteur

"Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience." Comte de Buffon

"One morning one of us, having no black, used blue instead, and Impressionism was born." Pierre Auguste Renoir

Today's image: Late Night Travel By Thomas Hawk Beautiful shot. Thank you for sharing.

Markets are conversations

Thesis #1/95, The Cluetrain Manifesto

One key benefit of today's hyperconnectivity is the wealth of conversation. Not a day goes by without someone starting or adding to a discussion. On topics related to media there's a robust diversity of ongoing discussion. Those working in media will gain valuable insight and advantage by devoting attention to a couple of particular discussions.

First, serious inside broadcasting baseball conversations and, second, the abundance of comments on broadcast media emanating from what Jay Rosen has called "the people formerly known as the audience."

Many of us arrived here from a different world. Access or exposure to some kind of thought leadership or best practice wisdom and any continuing professional education whatsoever were limited; trade pubs were delivered weekly, popular industry conventions staged annually. The important exercise of "holding a mirror up to the audience" was typically a once a year ritual - the perceptual research study - more event than process.

This should not be understood as a suggestion we should discount the potential value of publications, conferences or survey research. Au contraire, my thought is each would be enriched, complimented, not replaced, by careful study of available conversations. What has forever changed is context. The conversations are already in progress. Get engaged and involved.

To review the (now) obvious fundamentals as stated in The Cluetrain: "The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media." and "We have real power and we know it. If you don't quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that's more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with."

Localized radar: To get a quick read on your market create a local Twitter list. Populate with all the usual suspects. For best results make it an ongoing curation. Invite listeners/viewers/followers to suggest additions. Here's an example created for Madison, WI. Such lists can well serve your market "listening" strategy. FYI - some clients have created a second list using a Twitter account not associated with the company so they can also track tweets of all media in their market.

The Broadcast Ecosystem

My sense is broadcasters would benefit from some discussion about ecosystems. Let's frame it this way: Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook are each building and fine-tuning (iterating) an ecosystem. A bespoke community set designed to create and sustain competitive advantage. What is the state of your company's ecosystem? Seems a fair, timely and important question.

You can Google "Amazon ecosystem" (or any, all of the big four above) and get an idea of the concept, including graphic representations. In my experience, a candid and valuable discussion about any ecosystem should begin with mapping. Have your associates independently create maps which reveal what they believe is your present ecosystem. Gather your team to share and discuss their maps. Create a map of your ecosystem. Iterate. How can your ecosystem be improved?

One example: broadcaster ecosystem maps include Audience & Advertiser clusters. Within the Audience cluster are lifestyle groups and their purchase needs/behaviors. These relate to buyer, potential buyer groups within the Advertiser cluster.

An area often overlooked in this mapping is your local developer community. The upside potential of establishing a formalized approach, a respectful place within your ecosystem, to effectively involve talented hometown geeks is not at all insignificant. Thank me later.

Good reads

The Future of UI: Contextual Intelligence. By Bob O'Donnell, here

EXCELLENCE. NO EXCUSES. By Tom Peters. This 737-page download is a gem, here

The Power of One. By Fred Jacobs. Fred offers up a solid post about the Nielsen LA Radio ratings scandal which turns into an interesting discussion via comments on how ratings are used, here

Witty Worried and Wolf. Nancy Wolf, the smart and celebrated communications lawyer, is not retiring, she's restarting. Enjoy her new blog here

SCOTUS: The Aereo decision, here

In closing let me share a wonderful image. This week Professor Gary Hamel delivered another of his thought-provoking talks. A keynote at the London Business School's Global Leadership Summit, his talk was about hacking management. The following image was taken from his deck. My thanks to Dr Hamel for allowing it to be shared here. Dare to distribute, discuss and post in your workspace.

"What the customer buys and considers value is never a product. It is always utility - that is, what a product does for him." Peter Drucker

"Life is pretty simple. You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is in doing something else." - Tom Peters

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." - Andrew Lewis

Today's image: Hey! by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to September.

As we begin both the last frenetic drive to make our numbers before the 2011 clock runs out and the ritual dance that is the annual budget process, some loose ends for your consideration. As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Start playing the game thinking ahead
two moves or more

Critical thinking and serious listening continue to provide exceptional yields. Paul Drew often said planning afforded the best possible ROI. He was spot-on. Putting scenario planning and game theory to work are but two solid options. Let's begin by asking the important question...

What if?

What if transactional business died?

Spots and dots represent the single most important revenue engine of the broadcast trade but what if, without notice, transactional revenues precipitously declined?

We must ask such prescient questions.

I'm reminded of that famous speech at the 1975 NARM, The Day Radio Died delivered by the gifted Stan Cornyn, then a senior Warner Brothers executive. As it happened, Stan had asked exactly the right question at precisely the wrong time (the record industry, being in high cotton, dismissed his provocative thought experiment).

It's critical that we play ahead.

Here's a practical example deserving discussion: How are we going to optimize political in 2012 and what's our strategy for beating those numbers in 2013 without that cyclical gift? Importantly, what if political allocated to broadcast is reduced or doesn't come back at all in the 2014 midterm or the 2016 federal? Isn't this a perfect time to entertain the notion that an RAB/TvB led task force be established to work these cycles? From K Street to every campaign headquarters, PAC and all of the political consulting firms there are stories to be told, value propositions to evangelize and champion.

On the day job we were criticized some years ago for daring to ask "What if?" Specifically, when the automotive category went south we initiated conversations grounded in the brutal candor of fresh circumstance. We began asking "What if it doesn't come back? What if it does come back and the dollars are shifted, less broadcast and more other including interactive? How then do we compete?" The situation was indeed tragic. Some long established car stores, the majority perennial broadcast clients, closed forever. Time spent in scenario planning paid off. Our clients paced ahead the next two years having developed strategies to replace 60% or more of their local, zone and national auto spend (i.e., dealer, association, factory dollars). Moreover, we developed new strategies and tactics for auto to more effectively employ broadcast and in that process totally reimagined and rebooted the category.

What if your transactional business died? What exactly is your strategy for staying in business? The exercise is important. Rather than wasting time in a hypothetical "losing it all next year" discussion let's first imagine 2012 as the year transactional is off by 12%, your attrition rate doubles, your DSO adds 10 more days and you lose both your top seller and your DOS. What's your plan to deliver your numbers? Ask "What would have to happen?" for us to make our numbers given a set of specific conditions (ninjas of finance call such probabilistic conditions "assumptions"). Using worst-case scenarios can be productive if they are not simply possible but also credible.

We must embrace the simple reality that transactional is, in essence, a commodity business. As such, this segment of media spend is more likely than not to move away from personal selling and into the more efficient realm of machine trading. The strategic issue here is how do we optimize participation in this commodity trading process and at the same time develop a separate sales organization focused on selling solutions rather than numbers? How do we move from responding to an avail to working with clients in a creative collaboration to produce results? We have an urgent need to do both.

Sidebar: During my time with CBS Mel Karmazin asked me to consider putting Howard Stern on one of our Dallas stations. Howard was not cleared in the market at the time. One of my first thoughts was "What happens if the airplane goes down?" Experience had taught me that the best time to look for talent was before you needed them. Fast forward. Howard announces he's leaving and suddenly at risk are ratings at a bunch of stations and what has been estimated to be about 100 million in CBS billing. It became clear there had been no serious succession planning prior to Howard's announcement. History records this as a fire drill where people were sent into the burning buildings.

As the proverb says: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Mind the wise counsel of Tom Peters "The trick is in doing something else." Let's get to work.

The major advances in civilization are processes
that all but wreck the societies in which they occur
Alfred North Whitehead

Bonus: Erik Sass provides an interesting overview of what's happening and not happening in American advertising. Winners and Losers: The Changing Media Ad Landscape, 1980 -2011, here.

Flashback: The challenges faced by music radio today simply demand the aggressive employment of innovation and creativity. N=1, August, 2004.

"Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same without such opinion, despair." Thomas Hobbes

"Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage." Samuel Johnson

"Initiative is to success what a lighted match is to a candle." Orlando Battista

Today's image: tea by Garry Wiesgin. Amazing shot. Thank you for sharing.

Let's catch up. Two good reads worthy of your bandwidth...

A simply wonderful collection of Tom Peters thinking (and living) out loud.

"Instead of waiting to launch a new idea or business until 'things get better,' or starting off every project with a focus on cost minimization, consider instead this quote from former Lend Lease (Australia) CEO Stuart Hornery:

"Every project we take on starts with a question:

'How can we do what's never been done before?' "

Make Hornery's Bold Question your automatic Question #1:

"How will this project enhance the Customer Experience in a way that's so 'dramatically different' from our competitors that we capture new customers and retain old customers and grow our share of business with them. And markedly boost the 'top line'?"

"THINK DIFFERENT" must be a full-time preoccupation in good times and bad..."

The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE. [Amazon info] Follow Tom on Twitter, here.


Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson, the founders of 37signals, have produced a gem. Rework is a playbook for the real world, a compilation of clear headed business rules.

"Inspiration is perishable.

We all have ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever. What doesn't last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: It has an expiration date.

If you want to do something, you've got to do it now. You can't put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can't say you'll do it later. Later, you won't be pumped up about it anymore.

If you're inspired on a Friday, swear off the weekend and dive into the project. When you're high on inspiration, you can get two weeks worth of work done in twenty-four hours. Inspiration is a time machine in that way. Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won't wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work."

Rework [Amazon info] Follow Jason on Twitter, here.

Bonus: Time to Start Taking the Internet Seriously by David Gelernter. Must-read of the week, via EDGE, here.

Thanks for stopping by. Have an incredible weekend. Back next week with a brand new show.

"Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created." Werner Heisenberg

"The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony." Heraclitus

"The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know." Arthur Koestler

Today's image: Singel at dusk by Mor (bcnbits). Wonderful. Thanks for sharing!

Tom Peters writes a great deal of relevant stuff. Late in 2004 he created a list and titled it CEOs Are Idiots! (Project05, 240-page PDF, free download here). Here are six from Tom's list.

CEOs are idiots because they...

1. UNDERestimate the Threat to their Existence; OVERestimate their Resilience

2. Fail to spend Hyper-aggressively on IS/IT...fail to exploit fully the web

5. Recruit mostly from Conventional Sources; have a Low Tolerance for RiskTakers - Freaks

6. [Are] Less than 24/7 "TalentFanatics"

7. Favor "MarketShare" over MarketCreation

8. Believe that "Process" beats "Passion," "Analysis" beats "Action"

Bonus: Listen to adults having their way with a student radio station. Bruce Ravid hosts today's take over at WSUM in Madison. Check it out here.



Image: Techcrunch. Duncan Riley live blogging the SJ keynote from Macworld here.

700Mhz: Google is on the list along with Cox, Advance/Newhouse, Bresnan. John Eggerton has the story at B&C here.

"The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention." Kevin Kelly

"If you're not quite there, getting there takes some nerve." Tom Peters

"Execution is the job of the business leader." Larry Bossidy

Today's image: Portrait of a Superman by Thomas Hawk. Wonderful. Thank you!

Wanted:
Superwomen
(Supermen need your help)

Broadcast sales is broken. We need a new format. A reboot ain't enough. What's called for is a new OS.

Reading Tom Peters and it hit me, like the kiss on the end of a wet fist (my thanks to troupe Firesign).

Tom referenced Jeffery Tobias Halter. Selling to men - the transaction model; selling to women - the relational model. The example used is "Mission: Go to Gap, buy a pair of pants. Male, Time - 6 minutes, Cost - $33. Female, Time - 3 hours 26 minutes, Cost - $876."

The comparison we most often used in the last century was shoes. Men go out to "kill" a pair of shoes and return in minutes. Women go "shoe shopping" returning in hours and sometimes without shoes but seldom empty handed. Another typical stereotype involves how men get lunch when women discuss the options and go to lunch.

The bulk of broadcast sales remains transactional.

It's fair to ask - is transactional male in its very nature?

Does this manifest itself in attitude? Get out there and "kill" some business today. Is this exhibited in too many brute force tactics, male approaches including phone blitz fire selling and the relentless competitive offensives. The continued sanction of internecine warfare. The silo restricted battles of TV vs TV and Radio vs Radio. The accepted ritual of broadcasters getting up everyday and going to work with one game plan - to kill other broadcasters. The avail become blood sport.

The entire world of measured media and media behavior is changing around us while our sales departments (absent the obvious revolution in communication tools) continue, as a practical matter, to operate using a template, a format, first developed in the last century.

What part of the sales crisis continues, in some measure, because of male hard-wiring issues? How much of our inability to make effective corrective progress can be traced to male DNA stuff (and associated derivatives including ego)? Have the Supermen of the business already given the mission of fixing sales their best shot? Are we failing to take advantage of new opportunities because of genetic blindness? Held back by a belief system based upon the tweaking, fine-tuning and perpetuation of inherited best practice? A faith in operating traditions so strong, prejudice so deeply ingrained that it precludes any possibility of practice abandonment? Why do we continue to be obsessed with getting better at these same old approaches? In sum, we are doing basically the same things better and expecting a significantly different result.

Clearly, it's not working.

There has never been more cash pumped into the ad spend and up for grabs yet broadcast is failing to grow. Hint: the buyers are not at fault. Their failure to understand the power and value of broadcast, their lack of investment serves as perhaps the most valid of report cards, it's hard empirical evidence on the effectiveness of our selling efforts.

What should be done next?

It's time to stop playing around with the numerator and get to work on the more important strategic mission - changing the denominator.

My suggestion is we need to get different.

It's time to put more women in charge.

TOP LINE
IS EVERYTHING

"You need revenues to grow earnings over time"
Dick Kovacevich

"Our whole story is growing revenue"
Vernon Hill

"Human creativity is the ultimate economic resource"
Richard Florida

My thanks, again, to the great Tom Peters for inspiration. My thanks too to Dan Kelley for his kind words earlier this week. Rock on, Dan!

Catch someone doing something right today! Have a great weekend. Viva Le Beaujolais Nouveau!

"Leadership involves remembering past mistakes, an analysis of today's achievements, and a well grounded imagination in visualizing the problems of the future." Stanley C. Allyn

"We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us." Christian Bovee

"One of the greatest victories you can gain over a man is to beat him at politeness." Josh Billings

Contrast!

It's what separates the winner from every other player.

It's the dramatic difference! that Tom Peters rants about (thank you very much TP!).

It's the essence of the Rosser Reeves USP, the heart of the Trout & Ries positioning premise and the real secret of the Seth Godin purple cow.

Job one: Create Contrast

Creating contrast is, in fact, the single most critical factor in every winning political campaign. It's what Ailes gets, what Klein is doing his best to make happen and, clearly, what Abrams fails to grasp. In the last century we called it "integrity in the short listen" or "impact in the short viewing" or "perceptions on the first visit." They all hold true today. How exactly is your "brand" experience dramatically different (and memorable)?

In my experience (day jobs), creating contrast has been the key to producing winning results, truly remarkable achievements and progress, in every single broadcast, cable, online, political and retail endeavor where we have been fortunate to be involved.

Contrast.

Don't even consider winning your market without first thinking about, imagining, adopting and committing to a very serious contrast strategy.

20th century challenge: get better
21st century challenge: get different

Contrast! Remember the words of Emile Zola "I am here to live out loud."

Congrats & cheers: Balihoo raises $1.5 mil in their first round (they're looking for a biz dev person)

"Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction." Goethe

"We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect." Henry David Thoreau

"People count up the faults of those who keep them waiting." French proverb

What a week. Microsoft spends $6 billion to buy aQuantive. Microsoft's Chris Dobson tells the NYT "It puts us in the game." Miguel Helft and Eric Pfanner have the story, Microsoft to Buy Online Ad Company. The online ad bidness is booming. Michael Arrington writes up his usual good coverage here. Lost in the noise was Microsoft's alpha launch of Popfly.

This after Google buys DoubleClick, WPP purchases 24/7 RealMedia and Yahoo! adds RightMedia. Rafat offers up some perspective on the indies remaining here and another take here. My sense is it's only the beginning (and only one part) of this year's major M&A wave.

The resume reinvented: TalentSpring. Very cool. Bravo!

Tom Peters: "Don't do it unless it's fun...Make it fun...Make it fun for others...Act as if your life depended on it; your professional life does." Read TP's post, 100 Ways To Succeed #90, here. Highly recommended, Bravo Tom! (Readers of this scribbler will recall "Are you having fun?")

Sky show tonight: Look for the waxing crescent moon paired with Venus tonight. An incredible sight to behold. More info here.

Bonus: Get your very own theme music with a little help from MethodMusic, a Pete Townshend venture. Josh Catone has the details here. Hurry - free until July 31.