Category Archives: Media & Culture

Listenomics and why things are different this time

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I remember reading Bob Garfield’s The Chaos Scenario as an article in Advertising Age but I’m not sure I listened to the interview Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) posted to his website back in March. More on that in a moment. I don’t think the book is out yet but here’s a blurb from the web page:

“What happens when the old world order collapses and the Brave New World is unprepared to replace it…as an ad medium, as a news source, as a political soapbox, as a channel for new episodes of “Lost?” That is The Chaos Scenario.

In this fascinating, terrifying, instructive and often wildly entertaining book, Garfield is not content to chronicle the ruinous disintegration of traditional media and marketing. No, having established the problem, he travels to five continents for solutions.

What he discovers is the answer for all institutions who wish to survive – and thrive – in a digitally connected, Post-Media Age. He calls this the art and science of Listenomics.”

Mr. Garfield is Advertising Age editor-at-large and co-host of NPR’s On the Media. Looking forward to the book. If you spot it before I do, let me know.

Lance on why he and Sheryl Crow split

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“She wanted marriage, she wanted children; and not that I didn’t want that, but I didn’t want that at that time because I had just gotten out of a marriage, I’d just had kids [Luke, Grace and Bella],” Armstrong, 37, reveals. “Yet we’re up against her biological clock — that pressure is what cracked it.” — New York Post.

“The Newspaper & Radio Bailout”

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I’m a little fuzzy on whether the following description of the newspaper business model should be attributed to Warren Buffett or Eric Rhoads (Radio Ink) but the point is the same:

“Write the news, cut down millions or trees for paper, build massive printing plants to print it overnight, have a distribution model that pays people to fold and bag hundreds of papers and burn thousands of gallons of gas to go house-to-house throwing papers out of their car windows so people can walk out into the cold or rain in order to read news that is 12-24 hours old.”

Well, if you put it that way… And I particularly liked the line: “Do they really believe the Internet generation can be convinced to sign up for home delivery?”

“Homeless American”

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adv4foodOn the way home from the airport yesterday I gave some money to a man sitting at an intersection. I don’t usually do that and I’m not sure why I did this time. But I think it was something about the sign he was holding. It read simply: “Homeless American.”

Now, I don’t know if he was homeless (he looked the part) or American, but something about the sign spoke to me. The simplicity? Maybe. For the rest of my trip I thought about the signs used by… beggars? Too Third World. Panhandlers? Let’s go with that.

How important is the sign? Without it, I might have thought he was just looking for a ride, so I think the sign is a must. Usually brown cardboard and almost always lettered with black marker.

But most important of all would seem to be what your sign says. Haven’t seen “will work for food” for a while (Sounds a little too much like a negotiation.) Can’t be too long if you’re working an intersection or even busy pedestrians.

Is there some secret list of Great Signs That Work Every Time? I’m thinking it ain’t on line so they must move it from hand to hand.

Some would insist the guy I saw —and those like him— are lazy and could get a job if they wanted one. I’m not so sure.