Magic Hugs

You can do stuff like this very easily…

Ghost Stories

This “Ghost Stories” idea is in the same spirit of the “Pinewood Derby” post a few weeks back. The idea is this: to create a compelling piece of local radio content–on the cheap–that engages not only the parents of your community, but the kids as well. The theory is that if you can give kids a positive and nostalgic memory of your radio station at an early age that will follow them into adulthood. That, and it’s a very unique piece of content that any local business would love to sponsor. This program would be mostly suited for a local AM talker is a small town.

Here’s how easy it would be to do this…

1. Call To Action. Run a 30-second promo inviting members of your community to stop by your radio station to record a ghost story that they remember hearing as a kid. Something from camp, Boy/Girl Scouts, you get the idea. If nobody responds to the promo, then I would recommend taking a portable recorder down to the Old Folk’s Home and getting some of the geezers to tell you stories there. They would absolutely love it. Old people love to scare kids…

2. Production. Record each 5 or 10 minute “Ghost Story” in the prod room of your radio station. Produce it up with cool sound effects, or something as simple as a spooky music bed. Knock out an hours worth of these.

3. Execution. Promote the thing as a Friday or Saturday night special program that runs during the summer months. Make a big deal out of it by encouraging kids to camp out in their back yards with one of their dad’s old transistor radios. You know…after reading that last sentence, that may not be such a good idea! Just promote it as a show that kids should listen to with their parents.

This is a quick and easy program to slap together. It will be almost as easy to sell. Also, doesn’t this just sound like fun?

The Worst Job In America?

I’m sure Mike Rowe would disagree with me on this, but Kris Jones must have the wort job in the country. I don’t know this guy personally, but his job title says it all: he’s the Director of Media Relations for the NAB.

Working for a horribly antiquated and obtuse organization, Kris seems to be charged with spinning an endless stream of negative press. It’s a terribly difficult job and Kris seems to be plugging away at it just fine. Check out his Twitter profile to get a sense of what he’s dealing with. Among other things, he seems to be trying to spin the tale that poor local radio stations should not have to pay royalties for whatever reason. Good luck with that.

My personal message to Kris: “Listen bro…I live just down the street from the NAB headquarters in DC. If you wanna grab a beer and chat, I’d love to help you update your resume and find a proper job.”

I wonder if Kris ever had the chance to learn from the mistakes of Eddie Fritz…

Just Make Good Stuff

I was recently turned on to this great blog post from Matt Haughey (trust me, he knows his shit). He talks about real social marketing. It’s a good read for anyone looking to dip their toes into Twitter, etc. Here’s a taste:

“So maybe instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends, you may not even need “social media marketing” after all.”

Droolfest

My buddy Bill is sick and spending his time in the hospital. He has a camera, and tons of time. If he can come up with this from his hospital bed, then think of what you could do…

New Life

So…my business partner–Jim McBean–and I headed out today to buy a new computer today. Since my Power Book died last month things have been pretty slow for me. At least in the online sense. I am the proud owner of a nice new 20-inch iMac and I feel great. This neglected blog has new life. Onward…

The Birth Of A Career?

(This post is a collaboration between myself, Jim McBean, Michael Crider, Aaron Lee, and “The Don” Jessie Scott.)

What would you pay to have this moment of your career caught on tape?

This is about Sheila, who met us through a reckless Twitter contest that neither she or her friends believed was real. Three months later –at her own expense– she asked to intern at Music Fog, hoping to change her career plans forever.

It would be in all of our best interests to make sure that she succeeds.

The bravery and fortitude that she’s shown should be carried through the rest of your career. If you’re still this willing to take risks like this ,then you will continue to succeed. This is the birth of a career.

Follow Sheila: @shefran

Smash The Wall

It finally happened. My trusty Mac finally died yesterday. It was the equilevant of a massive heart attack.

So here I sit in the middle of the night, attempting to hack out a legible post on my iPhone. This massive computer failure could not have happened at a more inconvient time, as I’m flying to Austin in 5 hours for the music side of SXSW. It’s a big deal for my new company; sort of our coming out party. We’re already starting to generate a small amount of buzz and press (scored a blurb in the Wired Magazine blog today!). Anyway, please bear with me this week as I attempt to blog from my phone and various hijacked computers. I do not plan on abandoning this little online crusade of mine because of a little technical difficulty.

Which brings me to my point: when someone throws up a wall in front of you, smash it. Smash it good. If you’re in local radio you’ve never seen more walls than right now. They come in many forms, from limited staffing, to out-of-touch owners and industry leaders (they’re not all bad, but many are).

If you remember from the video I posted here on Sunday, Edison failed with the light bulb 10,000 times before he got it to work. It took time, but he eventually got around the wall. If he had quit after 9,999 times the world would be a very dark place.

Another analogy: Professor Randy Pausch always believed that the “locked door” wasn’t there to keep him out, but rather to keep out the “other” guy who wasn’t daring enough to smash it down.

Identify what’s holding you or your station back, then eliminate it. This may sound overly-simple, but it’s surprising how many organizations can actually do it. Why? Because you have to cut the crap and be honest with yourself about what you have been doing all along. It’s always funny how often a problem can be solved with a little drive and a lot of honesty…

Smash the wall.

Need Sales? Solve A Problem

About nine years ago, I was fortunate enough to have worked along side a brilliant young sales guy at Learfield Communications (and for the life of me I can’t remember his name, Chuck something?). He was constantly looking for companies in his territory that he could truly help with the power of his network. That seemed to be his primary focus and he was wildly successful. I stalked him quite a bit, and learned a lot from him along the way.

Here’s one example of his strategy in action…

I was in his office and he was trolling the Iowa news wires. He was reading a story about a local power company that was dealing with wide-spread outages after a massive storm and the community was getting pissed. A light bulb went off in his head: “You know what, Ben? I’ll bet this power company is going to have some serious image problems after this is all said and done. I think I can help their PR campaign.” He immediately got on the the phone with their PR gal and offered a solution to her problem. I listened to his conversation intently. The words “sales” or “money” never even left his mouth. He focused on engaging the potential client and offering her a solution to a specific problem. Brilliant. He got the account on the spot. The cool thing about this guy? He was very genuine. Not a sleazy sales bone in his body.

I’ll bet that if your local sales staff shifted their underlying focus from “selling” to “problem solving” you would start to see some serious gains. At the end of the day, that’s what your potential clients are all looking for, right?

[Update: I was chatting the other day with respected radio consultant Ed Shane about this upcoming blog post. While he agrees with the concept, he brings up a solid point: local sales folks –in today’s current economic climate– just don’t have the time to develop the kind of solid relationship they once had with individual clients. It’s all about what you sold today. Is there something we can do about this? Thanks for making that point Ed.]

The Creative Environment

Ever since the first transmitter was fired up, radio has profited from creativity…

• The creativity of musical artists.
• The creativity of talk show hosts.
• The creativity of production.
• The creativity of promotions.

If this is the case, then why is it that today’s local radio stations are –for the most part– horrible environments for creative people to actually work in? Why do the inner offices look more like banks than the sofa-and-video-game quarters of say, Pixar? Where’s the ping-pong table in the break room? The fish tank in the studio? Remember how crazy station’s were back in the 80s? Have we officially killed any remaining creative spirit in local radio? That’s not a rhetorical question, please leave a comment below and let me know.

If you are wondering where all of the truly creative radio folks have gone, then just take a look at the work environment your station has created (environment is key, because they started leaving long before consolidation). The really creative folks that I know wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. If this is part of your company’s dress code, then you are limiting yourself.

Don’t just talk about creativity in a conference room. Open your office up to the weirdos. Make them feel welcome. They are almost always the ones who come up with “The Next Big Idea.” And that’s just what you need right now. A gool ol’ shot of weird…