While the drawbacks of getting sucked into reading seemingly random inputs from seemingly random people you follow on Twitter are pretty obvious, the possibilities for focused input, or even a true focus group, are amazing.
When I was an Acquisitions Officer in the Air Force, I worked for about 8 months on a program that processed security clearances and was given a team to work all the data on how fast the process was going, and presented daily metrics to the government agency in charge of the program. The words my boss told me when he gave me the duties, “The guy who reports the metrics can prove just about anything he wanted to,” turned out to be so truthful it was a little frightening.
The experience has made me a numbers and info junky on par with die hard rotisserie baseball geeks. And Twitter is filling that addiction to information like no other analytic tools ever has.
The magic is in its mission statement, a chance for people around the world to instantly share with others what they are doing. It also gives you the chance to look into the minds of those same millions of people, and see what they are doing, thinking, buying, or dissing.
This power is easily seen in the quick Twitter chatter scene during big television events as people who are looking to be a part of the mass experiences fire off snarky comments as an organic commentary track. This power has been most prominent in watching the ups and downs during the 2008 presidential election and the early days of the Obama Presidential Administration.
As a metrics nut, I like to lot watch the Twitter feeds during big events on TV, like new episodes of 24 and live performance shows nights on American Idol. But the real fun has come during President Obama’s television news conferences. Especially the ones that delay prime time television. Instant praise, instant hate, and instant color commentary is available to anyone willing to scroll thought a few pages of tweets.
Any marketer or sales manager can do a Twitter topic search on their company and find out exactly what is being said exactly when people are thinking about it. That was a good thing for the marketing team at Skittles that decided to make their Twitter search page the actual corporate product website, and a bad thing for Motrin after the Motrin moms took to blogosphere over a commercial that didn’t go over so well with them.
Monitoring your Twitter conversation does give you lots of insight into the thoughts of your brand or product. Just be ready to dismiss some of the more silly or snarky comments. After all, we are still talking about people using the anonymousness of the internet (even if it’s getting harder and harder to stay anonymous) to be a little to open and honest, with little regard of the consequences of the words going out to the world.
In the anticipation of the arrival of a new tax deduction baby to our family, my wife and I have been doing some writing to present to the our child, who sex has not been determined but we have already settled on the first name Kendall (although the wife is starting to waver on the name with about seven months to go). She is keeping a diary of things that happened in the year of his/her arrival, I am writing some of the life lessons I have absorbed to eventually but into book form and hopefully guilt some of you out there into buying to help pay for baby supplies (I am an entrepreneur after all). As I work on pieces I will post them here, looking for as much honest feedback of its usefulness, and a little conversation on just how hard it was for y’all to learn these lessons yourself. Assuming you have actually learned these lessons.
Please leave comments as they come.
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Book Of Kendall Rule #2: Don't Fight For The Chance To Be Right
It is easy to see that there are plenty of causes to fight for, and many of them are worth fighting and sacrificing for. But it is never a worthy battle is your goal is just to claim the title of ‘being right.’
There are plenty of things worth spending your energy on than proving you are right to a group of useless non-believers. Being fair, being honest, being just, and just being are just a few things. Sometimes, it might be necessary to throw a fight to save someone from hurt feelings. Sometimes you have to take a dive to enable yourself to save face. The circumstances of your life will dictate which battles are truly important and which once are really just poor sparring sessions.
Save your fury of righteousness for the time you are going to need it. Because there will be times when the fight to prove you are right will be the most important thing for you in that moment. It may even prove to be career or life saving. But it is impossible to 100% spot on correct all the time and a complete waste of energy to pursue the winning stance in every argument.
Today’s Quote: “Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.” - Ellen Goodman
Today’s Question: What is your favorite tradition?
The fourth P is finding 30 minutes a day TO PAUSE. Time to relaxing and unwind from the stresses of the past day so that you can prepare for a fresh one, also the proper time for reflection and putting it down on paper. Whether you call it meditation, prayer, or just finding a way to get out of your own head, the time you spend in a PAUSE from the everyday world will help you separate the important things worth having to worry about from the more mundane life aspects not worth the effort. You’re likely to learn that your life is unnaturally controlled by the more mundane items.
As we get ready for the climax of the NCAA Division I College Basketball Champions, better known as the Men’s & Women’s Final Four, now is a great time to look at the two tournaments as they have progress so far and reflect on a common sports analogy, playing to win versus playing not to lose.
Playing to win means taking advantage of opportunities and taking chances that could help you increase your standing, whether you are ahead or behind. Playing not to lose means focusing on the safe distance between you and you opponent, trying to slowly widen the gap in your favor and not allow team momentum to switch.
Playing to win brings excitement and drama to a game. Playing not to lose slows down the experience for everyone.
Playing to win means leaving everything you came into the build with on the court, whether you ultimately win or lose, and know that you couldn’t have possible pushed out any more effort. Playing not to lose will leave you wondering if you couldn’t have scored more, achieved more, produced more, whether you ultimately win or lose, and leaves you with a what if feeling.
Warriors and heroes play to win, and live with the consequence. Bureaucrats and politicians play not to lose, and have to defend the consequences.
Do you live your life with a sense of adventure? Do you push yourself to your personal limits everyday to see just how far and how fast and how long you can go?
Do you live your life questioning the motives of others? Do you guard yourself and your positions and your possessions against any sort of loss?
Are you playing to win in life, or just playing not to lose?
Today’s Quote: “Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God and value it next to conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of, a blessing money can't buy.” - Izaak Walton
Today’s Question: Would you choose health or wealth?
I was looking to challenge myself today in my writing, and found myself surprisingly fixated on wrestler Ric Flair's Space Mountain quote for most of the morning. Not sure exactly way the aging wrestler was in my thoughts, but somehow, inspiration struck because of it.
What you have below is the wisdom gleaned from words of the Nature Boy, one of the greatest athletic and theatrical performers I have ever witnessed. Give it a quick read, and see how much knowledge you can gain for use in your business or personal life.
"This ain't no garden party, brother. This is wrestling, where only the strongest survive."
Make sure what you are getting to is exactly what you want to get into, because chances are, you're going to find the path it takes to get there has plenty of surprises waiting for you just past your line of site. And by surprises, I mean obstacles to your progress and problems that will take you off course. Just know they will appear, and prepare yourself for the journey. Just make sure it is a journey worth taking.
"Girls, you can't be the first, but you can be next."
The world is full of pioneers. You don't necessarily have to be one to be successful and prosperous. In fact, you will probably be doing yourself a favor by following in the footsteps of someone who took the time to blaze a trail ahead of you.
“Space Mountain may be the oldest ride in the park, but it has the longest line.”
Once you’ve established yourself as the bonafide leader, everyone will want a piece of you. And you might be as great as you’ve convinced people that you are, but you are still only one person. Forget the myth of multitasking, you can only handle one request at a time, leading to a slow and plodding process of people constantly trying to work their way to get a little closer to you a little faster then you can handle. Let them wait.
"I'm a limousine ridin', jet flyin', kiss stealin', wheelin' dealin' son of a gun. WOOOO!!"
You've got little choice in your life but to sell yourself, your ideas, or you actual product to the world. If you’re going to sell yourself, you might as well be bold about it as possible. As long as you're not lying about it, sing your own praises to your hearts content.
"To be the man, you've gotta beat the man.”
This has to be Flair's most famous quote, and my second favorite of his (edged out just slightly by the Space Mountain quote). Put plain and simply, if you want something so badly, step up and try to take it. Talk is talk, but only those brave enough to put forward the action needed to make it happen will ever make it happen.
"Whenever they feel like it, the door's wide open."
Oh, and by the way, once you've scratched and clawed your way to the top, your role changes. You are no longer striving to get there. You are there. Now is the time to start striving to stay there, with plenty of up-and-comers looking to take you out, and has-beens looking to take back the spot they used to own. They're coming for you, like it or not. Might as well make them fight for it.
“As long as he understands this is Flair country, it is.”
As long as you’re at the top of the mountain, it’s your world. As long as someone else is at the top of the mountain, it’s their world. Pouting and complaining won’t get you anywhere. Hard work, determination, a little or a lot of time (most likely a lot) will get you somewhere. With a little luck, you’ll actually make it to the top of the mountain. But until you get there, make sure you give plenty of respect to the current king. They’ve earned it.
“My God, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm almost embarrassed by the response, but when I see this, I know that the twenty five years that I've spent trying to make you happy every night of your life was worth every damn minute of it.”
This comes from Ric Flair’s retirement speech to his fans, and the message here is simple. Be courteous to those who offer you support along the way of your journey in business and in life, and be sincere to everyone. Yes, EVERYONE! You can never give to many ‘Thank you’s.’
The third P is finding 30 minutes a day TO PONDER. Time spent reading, learning, and researching to promote mental growth. Your PONDER time is the equivalent of your brain signing up for a mental gym membership and seeing if it will take full advantage. With enough time, you can work through a solution to just about any problem that you find yourself facing.
Today’s Quote: “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” - Epicurus
Today’s Question: Why would you want what you haven’t got?
If your excuse for not keeping up with your goals is that you don’t have constant access to them once you write them down and post them on a wall in your office, I have a simple solution for you. Create a personal goal card to keep with you.
Get a blank 3x5 card and set aside some time where you will not be distracted by random life events to really think about what you want.
The next step is simple. Just write down exactly what you want to accomplish on that card. The only stipulation being that it has to fit on one 3x5 card, which means wordy, flowery, rambling thoughts don’t translate very well.
When you are done, take a moment to study your work. Did you fill the whole card? Did you use both sides? Did you have to write in super-small print to fit in all of your goals?
For an advanced version, substitute a blank business card for the 3x5 card.
The point of this task is similar to business people spending time in advance crafting a 30-second elevator pitch. Your goals can and should be as vast as your imagination will allow, but simple enough for you to communicate the basic parts to a person in a way that they should be able to quickly understand. This even includes you, yourself.
Finally, just put the card in your purse, wallet, or pocket, and refer to it anytime you find yourself working fruitlessly on a project that seems to be going nowhere. If the task you are doing is in line with where your goals have you headed, keep on slugging thought it. If the task you are doing is not in line with your goals, figure out a way to get out of it. This exercise is great for both business and personal goals.
I used to sell electronics for a chain store, one that actually still exists, but had long standing trouble with where its identity was taking it at the time I was working there. I was hired as a seasonal worker and assigned to an inner city store because the hiring manager I interviewed with thought my maturity from my past work experience would help balance out the new manager they assigned to the store. The store was failing, but the new manager had proven an ability to move a lot of product, so they were giving him a shot.
The workers were on salary, but received commission bonuses on the dollar value of sales, accessories and service warranties added on to purchases, and various specific items.
It wasn’t long until I figured out what the young manager did to make his numbers look great. He targeted a high bonus product--cell phones--and sold a lot of free upgrade phones. Obviously, as a sales person, it’s not your job to worry if a customer can afford the new plan that was bundled with the upgraded free phone, but as the supposed customer server oriented sales people we were told to portray ourselves as, it should have mattered if the upgrade was needed, and if the new phone was worth it. And since we were a failing store that would get the minimum amount of good merchandise since the store could never really prove its worth, the phones we had available really weren’t worth it.
This same manager taped cables and batteries to our Christmas door buster items that came with cables and batteries, ringing them up as they came to the register to boost our accessory count for the day, then shifted the category numbers from the returns of the unneeded accessories to other sales clerks.
So the store was pretty well known across the city as a cell phone turn around location, with no other products on hand worth selling to repeat customers whom we had gained trust. Oh, and they called us for help setting up electronics they had purchased elsewhere.
The hiring manager who interviewed me was from another region, and was just there to help out the seasonal hiring for the city. A little research into his region found that the antics we pulled wouldn’t fly in his territory. My actual regional manager, who I didn’t meet until after I was kept on staff after the holidays were over, didn’t care what we did as long as we kept the cheap cell phones flowing, and only got rid of the young manager after an inventory showed that he was awful at keeping up paperwork. He was reassigned to a new store where he could use his learned tricks on new customers as just a regular salesman, and continued to do just fine.
A new manager was assigned to my store that brought in some truly old school salesmen. While they didn’t operate on as many questionable practices as the young manager did, you would have been amazed at what a veteran sales guy would do you keep up his numbers. I was let go fairly soon after the new manager came in.
I will tell anyone who will listen that I am a horrible salesperson because I don’t know how to effectively close a deal. But I make up for my lack of working up a proper transfer of money for goods and services by creating quality goods and providing over the top service. That was what was hoped would have rubbed off on the young manager. Only in an environment where hard, fast dollars what the only thing getting our regional manager’s attention, ‘the right way’ to do business didn’t stand a chance.
Maybe now that the light is starting to shine on the business tactics of our failing financial services and banks, a new emphasis will be placed on business getting done right.
Maybe you will put a new emphasis on your employees doing the right things for the right reasons, not just getting the job done as quickly and cheaply as possible to inflate profit numbers.
Today’s Quote: “We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.” - Whoopi Goldberg
In the anticipation of the arrival of a new tax deduction baby to our family, my wife and I have been doing some writing to present to the our child, who sex has not been determined but we have already settled on the first name Kendall (although the wife is starting to waver on the name with about seven months to go). She is keeping a diary of things that happened in the year of his/her arrival, I am writing some of the life lessons I have absorbed to eventually but into book form and hopefully guilt some of you out there into buying to help pay for baby supplies (I am an entrepreneur after all). As I work on pieces I will post them here, looking for as much honest feedback of its usefulness, and a little conversation on just how hard it was for y’all to learn these lessons yourself. Assuming you have actually learned these lessons.
Please leave comments as they come.
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Book Of Kendall Rule #1: Don't Take Everything Personally
Not everyone is going to like you. In fact, you will find you may have more than you fair share of people in your life that truly do hate you and have nothing but ill will for you. All the same, you come across more than a few people that you will find totally impossible to hate for various reasons, to include not good reason at all.
There will be battles of will and battles of wits. There will be knock-down, drag-out fights with the people you hate, the people that hate you, and plenty of other people filling various roles in your life.
From your long time friend, to the once in a life time encounter, and back to the people that truly make you blood boil and vice versa. There will be unkind words sent your way, sometimes on purpose, sometimes in innocence, and sometimes in the heat of an emotional tirade that you thought you could avoid.
Your feelings will be hurt, but listen to the words being said before you choose to take the words personally.
Yes, you will choose whether or not to take an insult personally. You may even choose to take needed feedback, a careless but harmless comment, and the drop dead honest truth as a personal insult. First, make sure have been insulted, then figure out whether the insult itself is worth the return of your wraith. Sometimes it will be deserved. Unfortunately, sometimes it will not be worth the effort to give the other party satisfaction. And most times the comment you received wasn’t exactly the comment meant to be sent, and isn’t an issue for rebuttal.
Today’s Quote: “Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.” - Thomas Carlyle
Today’s Question: What does your silence say about you?
AIG used government bailout money that was supposed to help shore out the struggling insurance/investment giant to pay executive bonuses and avoid contract lawsuits, which could have but the company out of business for good. The right thing to do legally, but the American public, and its new President, are not happy.
NBC Universal finally found a new way to brand the Sci Fi Channel, and in few months it will just be SyFy. Seriously. With a new tag line of “Imagine Greater.” If you thought fan boy hate was reserved of geeks and comic book movies, search for some of the comments online about this one. The hate is coming on strong, and from plenty of people who were barely holding on the channel as it was.
Sometimes your company has to deal with bad timing. Sometimes your company has to deal with a serious gamble of a decision. As the economy continues to suffer, expect a lot more chances to test your crisis management skills while you have to explain your actions.
And make sure you are prepared for the backlash. Because its going to come.
Americans are losing money, jobs, and patience. American businesses are trying their best to adapt to the new economic world. It’s a frightful existence, and some very old companies with long standing reputations will not make it out of this.
So what happens when hard times come? People panic, leaders jump to a conclusion that they hope will get the best results with the least amount of effort and pain, and decisions are made that are meant to push the greater good, but looks more like the digging of their own graves.
Now is the time to make smart decisions that take advantage of the disadvantages of the current reality. Now is the time to continue advertising, so negotiate for new rates with your outlets that have taken good care of you so that you can continue to take good care of them. Now is the time to reach out to new, nontraditional customers to make up for the regulars you are bound to lose, but not alienate your current customer base that has gotten you this far. Now is the time to make sure the tough decisions you make are the right decisions, not just legally binding.
Now is definitely not the time for perplexing moves for the soul propose of generating buzz. There really is such a thing as bad press.
Today’s Quote: "I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter." - Beverly Sills
Here are five super simple steps for getting the most out of life:
Believe: First you have to really know what you want to accomplish. Add to that the true belief that what you want is really possible, and you have the basis of a full start.
Endeavor: Work hard and fail. Work harder and fail some more. Just keep learning and growing from all the hard work and failure. Trial and error will get you their, step by step.
Persevere: Even though all that failing might not seem like the best way to spend your days, you won’t learn what is truly the right way until you figure out what is absolutely the wrong way. Have a little patience and focus on your belief that you’re doing the right thing.
Achieve: Eventually, you will get “there.” You may have found that you have arrived at a different “there” that you had pictured in the beginning, but you have still arrived. Life is filled with constant movement and changes, and your goals are at best a moving target from the start.
Time To Believe Again: You think you’re done? Far from it! Time to find a new goal to reach, a new dream to achieve, and start all over again from your new position.
The steps are simple, even if the reality of life makes there execution a little hard. Follow them anyway.
Today’s Quote: “Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.” - Gore Vidal
Today’s Question: How much help do you really need?
I love it when I have a spare 10-15 minutes to sit around and fool with Twitter (where you can follow my seemingly random muses and rants at http://twitter.com/djazzycool1, and blog specific updates at http://twitter.com/fastforwardlife). A quick explanation for those of you who haven’tcomeacrossallthepress on the micro-blogging service, Twitter ‘purpose’ is to answer the question, “What are you doing right now,” and share that answer with a few thousand followers instantly, and allowing those followers to potentially share that answer with the millions that have signed up for the service. Twitter has allowed me the chance to get back into the chat-room experience minus the hassle of chat-room moderation. In the past week I was able to have sustained conversations on the TV show 24, Terrell Owens’ signing with the Buffalo Bills, the Obama stimulus plan, and coffee. In any spare 10-15 minutes I can see what is going on in the lives of thousands of real friends, friends I’ve only met on the internet, and other random people (and more than a few celebrities) who are interesting, entertaining, or informative.
But there is always a con to every pro, and my con for Twitter is that since I am ease dropping with permission on a lot of diverse conversation, I get sucked into skimming through a lot of promotional garbage at times. I ironically also contribute to that garbage with various completely useless random thoughts of my own (@djazzycool1 is threatening to turn on the air conditioner) along with blatant blog promotions. Sure, all those who receive my information have given me permission to blab as much as I want to type. And I have given the same permission to all that I follow to push whatever they want my way in 140 characters or less. I can stop following any overly chatty personality with a few mouse clicks, and plenty of people that get tired of me stop following me as well.
It is only when Twitter is the only means of communication that I have with people, and for some people it truly is, completely dropping a follower becomes a problem. That is the basis for the hate part I have with social media. Other issues:
- Back in the day when I though it might be cool if people would fill out there profiles Yahoo! so that it would be easier to communicate, nobody wanted all that personal information just floating on a server somewhere in California. Now, the only what I communicate with some old friends is thought social networking sites.
- A year ago I asked a friend who was going through a rough path how she was doing. She told me to check out her MySpace status. She said this as she was standing right in front of me.
- I talk to my teenage cousins through MySpace and text messages, and since they only talk/type in text speak, I have no idea what they are saying most of the time.
- I have held hour long conversation with people sitting next to me in IM spaces because it was more convenient.
And so on and so forth. I’m sure you have your own loves and hates with communicating in the realm of social media. But for all of the drawbacks that come with being attached with living on the internet, the positives outweigh the negatives by leaps and bounds.
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friend Feed, LinkedIn, and other online connectivity services allow the average person a chance to connect to every single one of the over 6 billion people on the planet. You can ask a question and get answers from experts almost instantly. And the reach of businesses large or small, even with the amount of exploitation that is used, makes it less of a necessary evil and more of a daily annoyance or chore
Which is a long winded way to bring us to the title: promoting versus annoying. You wouldn’t think of driving around your neighborhood, knocking on every door, and announcing that Tuesday is tuna fish day for lunch. But you can do that in your online neighborhood. In fact, it might even be encourage as a way to foster a more community feel.
You would also be hesitant to go door-to-door selling your wares in today’s society. But inbox-to-inbox, as long as you have permission and are not overly annoying, is perfectly acceptable.
But there has to be balance. Unless you’re an entertainer or comedian, you can’t get by with just dropping funny quips. Unless you have the greatest product in the world or truly don’t care home many people you annoy to make a sale, you can’t just pitch links to your affiliate marketing programs.
It is okay to be a citizen, salesman, and statesman to various degrees within your online social networks. But just like in real life, a message can get really old and offensive a lot quicker that one may suspect. Expect to lose a follower or friend occasionally for various reasons, but try not to give them your excessive status yapping as a reason.
Today is a day of celebration! March 7 of National Be Heard Day.
Shannon Cherry, founder and president of Cherry Communications, created National be Heard Day in 2004 to call attention to the 145+ million people who are either own a small business or is an independent professional in the United States and use low-cost marketing efforts to get the word out. The day urges these professionals to find their voice, tell their story and be heard through marketing and publicity.
Shannon’s goal as PR specialist is to help entrepreneurs find their voice, tell your story, and be heard. And it is hard to pass up great tool to help you make that happen.
My goal is to help you move your business forward faster. You can get a great head start by claiming some of the tools Shannon is offering today. And no price is better than free.
Today’s Quote: “You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.” - W. Somerset Maugham
Today’s Question: Are you taking the time to learn the lessons being taught to you?
Citadel Broadcasting, ABC Radio Networks, and one of my Citadel-Little Rock Stations, KARN Newsradio, has a Paul Harvey problem.
Paul Harvey died last weekend at either 90 or 91 years old, based on whatever website you happened to get your story confirmation. Left now is a radio legacy that all of us in the business owe a great deal of gratitude for, and an immediate programming hole for millions of listeners.
But the Paul Harvey-programming hole problem is not what broadcaster will now fill his shoes. Veteran broadcasters and constant fill-ins Gil Gross and Doug Limerick will split the duty, and in an industry where movement is key for development, possibly allow just enough space to shuffle up more talent that has be waiting in the wings (a similar effect happened when David Gregory was announced as the permanent replacement for Tim Russert as host of NBC’s Meet The Press).
And the Paul Harvey-programming hole problem on the local level isn’t the loss of a familiar audio time hack, because other than the voice changes and possible title changes, you’re still going to get ‘News & Notes’ and ‘The Rest Of The Story’ at the same times on my station KARN Newsradio.
The Paul Harvey-programming hole problem that has to be dealt with is the knowledge that we may never have another personality created in Harvey’s likeness again.
Our key weapon in traditional over-the-air radio against the advancing forces of the paid satellite model or the sometimes paid-sometimes free streaming internet model or the 99-cents-a-song iTunes model was simple: you get the music/news/sports/entertainment free, and we’ll throw in great personalities, and local ones if want them. Since you could always just buy the music or buy the newspaper, the value added was received from hearing the voice of someone who is just like you: a neighbor with kids in the school system who you might have even had a class or two with in middle school. And while we have added to our arsenal of more podcasting/on-demand options in the face of an every growing time shifted world, its still a level playing field between choosing to download ‘the random nationwide syndicated guy’ and ‘your local guy and gal that wake you up every morning.’
The Paul Harvey-programming hole is special, since Paul Harvey obviously isn’t really sitting in a radio booth in your hometown, and all of his news can be accessed on the internet with little effort. But when Harvey started his shtick double my lifetime ago, you really couldn’t get all the information and stories in the way he did, and have the bonus of having it sound like your goofy brother-in-law or favorite great-uncle was telling it to you directly.
We have plenty of faux news programs now. On television, radio, and all over the internet. Some are produced as pure satire with their sole intention to mock and make fun of the actual news of the day. Some are pure comedy. Some do their best to spread news to people who wouldn’t get it otherwise. I even created one, called “8 Things To Talk About,” and tried to have an Arkansas-focused and a national-focused early morning audio new cast you could take along with you. But with a flood of options, you can only hope for a small piece of the total attention span pie.
Paul Harvey had a disproportionally enormous chunk of that pie for being a 90-year-old reader of goofy news stories trying to sell Bose Wave Radios. But you could easily take his script and style and find just about any descent broadcaster to can deliver it. They just wouldn’t be able to pull it off with the voice, the tone, the pitch, and the sometimes annoying artificial pauses and stutters like Paul Harvey did.
For me, losing radio legend Paul Harvey is personally comparable to when my younger sister died about 5 years back. Surrogate people magically appeared to fill the roles she played in my live, but none of them could fill them all perfectly, and none of them would ever BE my sister in the way she was both the most loving and painfully annoying person that she was. Paul Harvey isn’t just a familiar voice on the radio. He’s family. And sure, plenty of people with various amount of talent can replace him in many of his roles, but not the way he did it.
He was a man that kept a near obsolete programming model fresh and viable. He was inspiring to many, annoying to some, but admired by most who knew him, even if he was only known as the voice on the radio you heard that reminded you how late you were for work. He was a member of my radio family for the past 7 years and a personal friend who talked to me every day on the radio since I was 7.
The Paul Harvey-programming hole is a problem with no real solution. I’m sure Harvey himself would want us to get over it, and get ready for the next big thing.
Early into my marriage, my stepson, who was about 11 at the time, did two things that 11-year-old boys do pretty frequently: did something dumb enough to get himself grounded when he eventually got caught, and ratted himself out under the assumption he could guilt his mother into going easy on him.
But I wasn’t having it. The two foolish acts of the 11-year old was just too blatant to let go, despite and pressure I knew he was going to toss his grandmother’s way to pressure us to him off easy. he was grounded as soon as we got home (we were about 15 minutes away from a Christmas party for my wife’s job and we had one of her co-workers riding with us, so there was literally no turning back), with the major consequence being the ‘super fun activity’ planed for the next day (I have no recollection of what the actual activity was) was definitely canceled.
Having parents with the annoying habit of punishing me when I did something wrong, I was prepared to be the bad guy. And I was, to my new wife, who was so hyped up on whatever we were going to do the next day she didn’t want to ground her son at all, at least not until after we had finished.
The lesson I wanted to teach my stepson that went over his head as I battled with his mother is that all actions have consequences, and as bad as most of the consequences may seem, once you deal with them, there gone. As long as you don’t repeat the situation that got you in trouble in the first place, your chances of avoiding similar consequences are extremely high.
The lesson I wasn’t trying to teach my wife that went over her head as I battled with her was that plans change, and sometimes pretty quickly. When those plans change, it doesn’t matter how much you have vested in current plan of action, if the plan is no longer valid. My stepson had ruined the chance for fun for himself AND the rest of the family by messing up, and looking the other way would just reinforce his bad behavior as valid.
I’m sure there are similar instances that have occurred in your personal live, made much more obvious if you are raising kids at home. I’m also sure that if you think about it, you can find similar instances around the job.
Missed deadlines and sales projections are more common than they should be in today’s business place. While they might just be used as guideline and aren’t considered ‘that important,’ why even have them if you’re not at least giving some weighted consideration them? If you’re taking the time to put a plan in place, and you see the plan isn’t going to work, take the time to come up with another plan. If you’re seeing people missing the mark because they know there is no consequence for not trying, add some sort of consequence (not punishment).
The lesson I ended up learning as I battled with my wife over the immediate punishment of my stepson was to stand my ground, since both my wife and I knew the right thing to do was to cancel the fun because my stepson had done quite a bit to un-earn the rights to have fun in the span of his ten minute confessional. I learned to not be upset with my wife for being disappointed and upset, but having my parents teach me my since of right and wrong wasn’t just a way to pass the time until they could kick me out of the house at 18. It was the basis for the life skills I now have the honor and privilege of teaching my stepson, so that when his 11-year-old kids and his subordinates at work starts mouthing off (and we all know that BOTH will), he’ll have the mechanisms in place to properly handle the situation. If he fails to do so, well, there will of course be consequences.
Today’s Quote: "All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible." - William Faulkner
Today’s Question: How well would you rate your failures?
Rush Limbaugh makes a lot of money to talk to people everyday. But he talks to A LOT of people. And they listen intently—whether they really want to or not.
Say what you want about his politics, opinions, and sometimes flat out non-truths. If Rush were still just a radio DJ, and could take his following with him to any local metro, someone would figure out how to pay him even more money.
As the apparent voice of ‘The True Conservative,’ Rush had the chance to speak at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC 2009), and based mostly on people’s idea of the talk show host coming in, he gave either an amazing or pathetic speech.
But as far as I can tell, he was the only speaker covered live by Fox News Channel and CNN last night, with plenty of other Republican superstars set to step up to the podium. And he was definitely the most analyzed (I think over analyzed) speaker of the weekend.
It has taken him twenty years on the radio in the talk format to truly develop his powerbase, a dozen years before that to get him into talk radio, and although his detractors will quickly point out the missteps and failures he’s made up to this point, they will quickly use his message as the best way to shore up their opposing message. That is power, and truly ironic, as Rush is using President Barack Obama’s messages and policy decision to produce the opposing view so popular to his listeners, whether he is truly right 99% of the time or not.
If you like him, Rush Limbaugh is an effective communicator and great for rallying his troops. If you don’t like him, Rush Limbaugh is an outstanding communicator with the ability to spin webs of words that draw in masses of people to follow in lock step with his paranoid ideology.
Ether way, you can not deny Rush’s ability to get a message across effectively.
As a person whose business is about getting the message across effectively, its easy to see the tools and techniques used by Rush Limbaugh and to attempt to emulate and teach the ones that are most effective to the others...even is the end user is far from a fan and thinks that Limbaugh’s tactics are over the top and used unfairly. They are not. They are used in the medium in which they are most effective, and they work, even when they don’t get the expected response.
What seems like an army of blowtorches and bazookas in Limbaugh’s arsenal hide the ultra effective sniper riffle. The ability to shotgun blast the mainstream message while simultaneously pinpoint target the right people to perform the desired action, sometimes in his favor, sometimes against him, is where Rush has truly mastered the medium. No other media figure gets so much coverage on other media outlets than Limbaugh, a man who effectively only has a three hour syndicated talks show, a newsletter, and a website.
Rush Limbaugh is a classic case of the messenger with guns pointed at him by his opponents and his supposed allies because of the message he has chosen to deliver. But the message gets delivered every time. It’s what the masses do with the message that gets a little weird.
When Rush talks, people hear him speaking. They may then cheer or complain, they may misinterpret unintentionally or intentionally, or the may just hear him talking and do their best to drown out the noise and not listen, but a message gets sent.
Think about what lengths you go through to ensure your message gets sent, and what the receivers do with the message from that point on. If your method isn’t working, you might consider using a few tools from the Limbaugh tool box. It’s not about liking his message, it’s about knowing that his methods work.
Welcome to my new blog. This is where I will chronicle the next phase of mis-adventures of my life. Thank you for staying on the ride, and for you newcomers to the inside of my mental mania, I will do my best to make sure the trip is both entertaining and educational.
Life In Fast Forward: The Blog is still a bit of a work in progress. Keep checking in for new posts and site updates.
About Blog
This blog supports some of the thoughts and interjections from the folks at Fast Forward Business Properties. Our ideas, things we test, and a few random thoughts will show up here.
Name: J. Cleveland Payne
Home: Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
About Me: News is my profession, so it only fits that I am a news junkie. I'm a radio show/segment producer for a news/talk radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas.
