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August 5, 2011
Thinking It ThroughI did it again. I wrote a column, looked at it several times, and decided that it just didn't work. Total time wasted: several hours over two days.
This, of course, could have been avoided by a simple thing that I rarely do but you, as a talk show host, should always do. I should have taken a few minutes to sketch out my argument BEFORE starting to write the column. Working out the premise, basic facts, and conclusion BEFORE launching into the jokes and stuff would have prevented the time suck, because I'd have determined within a half-hour that I didn't really know where I was going with the subject. (That's a polite way of saying "I was talking out of my butt," which is a polite way of saying something else) It would have ...
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July 29, 2011
This Time It Should Be PersonalSo you're talking about the debt ceiling debate, and you're doing what talk radio does and picking sides and talking about who's winning and who's losing and who's to blame. You're taking about the Tea Party hardliners and the President and giving the play-by-play. But ...
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July 22, 2011
Risk And RewardOne of the things that's most interesting to me about the tech industry is something that you don't find in traditional media. It's a form of fearlessness that radio, for one, just doesn't possess. I'll give you a couple of examples to explain what I mean. Have you ...
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July 15, 2011
It's All About MobileI was in a ballroom in a hotel in Minneapolis Thursday morning, at a table safely in the deep back corner, all set up to report on the Conclave Learning Conference, when the table filled up with local college students, there to learn and network themselves into lucrative ...
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July 1, 2011
This Must Be The Acceptance StageOnce upon a time, believe it or not, most people didn't think talk radio belonged on FM. In that paleolithic era, the cry became "FM is for music!" We know today, of course, that this attitude was remarkably short-sighted and doomed. Okay, so that was a couple of years ...
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June 24, 2011
Learning (Sort Of) From FacebookWhat do people like to talk about? I was talking about this with Johnny Wendell, who does weekends on KTLK in L.A. and a podcast for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, because he'd noticed something about the response he gets from posting comments on Facebook. When he ...
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June 17, 2011
Forward Into The PastHere's a question for you salespeople out there: If you're told you have to sell something that you know isn't going to work for a client, how's that going to go? Even if you sell the product, you know you'll leave an unhappy customer. And that's why you won't do that ...
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June 10, 2011
Get On My Lawn!I'm at another convention, this one the "New Media Seminar," which is, naturally, a talk radio conference, because "new media" means what you want it to mean. (I want it to mean "free beer.") As I write this, it hasn't started yet, so I was looking over the agenda. ...
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June 3, 2011
Your All-Request ColumnTalk radio generally doesn't take requests. Not that music radio traditionally did, either. You know the drill: take the request, tell them it's coming right up, then play whatever's already in the log. Chances are they're only requesting stuff you play all the time ...
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May 27, 2011
Talk Radio's Judgment WeekOnce again, we come to the eve of a three-day weekend and I have to write a column even though I'm guessing your brain's out barbecuing or enjoying the beach. So we'll keep it short, because that's your attention span at the moment and because my brain's in the other ...