In the last few weeks I have heard stories about people and their mothers. “She’s my mother and I love her but I don’t choose to be around her.” “My mother doesn’t have an empathetic bone in her body.” That continues to remind me how lucky – or is that blessed – to have a great relationship with Mom. She’s not perfect (hell I’m no saint either) but we do have a great mother son love affair that certainly makes my life better and hopefully hers as well. Love you Mom and happy day.

Missed Lost this week. Not really upset as I assumed that the ABC app on the iPad would allow me to watch it when I wanted – which would be as soon as possible as I am a Lost fanatic at least until the end of the month. So Wednesday night I took the iPad out to the backyard (still plenty of WiFi signal) with the wireless headphones and watch the episode “The Candidate”. If you are a Lostie you know this is getting really interesting, but that’s not the point of this post. Watching Lost or any ABC show on the iPad with the ABC App is an absolute delight. No stuttering no “buffering” just minimal commercials (all female focused, sort of a shock) and pause and rewind. It was great – ABC hit a home run with this app, and I might even pay for it or some small fee to watch a show like this. (Certainly I could have watched twice as many commercials without any pain.).

Of course then it’s the bad news. No next week promo, no tease for the next episode – for that it’s off to ABC.com. And after 30 minutes of waiting loading and horsing around, I saw nothing. Nothing of Lost that is… I did watch 8 Priceline commercials – actually 2 commercials 4 times each. On my desktop, the Flash player ABC uses refused to load on the Mac Mini and just brought down the computer. On the iPad it was using some version of Quicktime but it kept repeating the same video and just refused to load the one I was selecting. All the good feeling I had from the ABC app went right down the drain after going to the ABC website. And it looks like you can lay all the blame on that nasty five letter word “Flash”.

Steve Jobs is right. Again. Hope he wins. Based on his current track record, don’t bet against him.

I started blogging under my radio name – Mark Elliott – a few years ago. Didn’t rely keep it up since it stopped making sense for some reason. Changing over tho this medium and using it for a personal journal type of blog works better for me and I like it MUCH more. Guess i have to go find everyone who read it before to let them know where I am writing now. Thanks Cassie you made my day.

Seth Godin is a marketer/writer/blogger extraordinaire.  I’ve quoted him before, and encourage you to subscribe to his blog (and buy his books, they are worth it)  at sethgodin.com.   Here’s something from his posts this week.

David Byrne is angry with me

I recently bumped into David (he of Talking Heads fame) at a conference. Our paths have crossed before, we share a few friends, I’m a big fan and he uses permission marketing to sell his records now. I said “hi.”

David’s eyes flashed, he turned his shoulders, muttered something and rushed away.

What did I say? What did I do? Why he is upset with me?

Of course, David Byrne isn’t angry with me. David Byrne doesn’t even remember who I am. In fact, David Byrne was busy, or late, or trying to figure out where he was supposed to go next. The last thing he wanted to do was patiently spend a few minutes figuring out who I was and then a few more minutes making promises he wouldn’t be able to keep.

The next time you’re sure someone is angry with you, perhaps it’s worth considering that you might be mistaken. Perhaps that customer or prospect or boss has better things to do than being angry with you. Each of us has a huge agenda, and while it’s comforting for some to jump to the conclusion that we’ve offended, it’s far more likely that the person you’re talking with merely has something else going on.

In a digital age, our cues for social or marketing missteps might be mistuned. Sometimes, believe it or not, it’s not (always) about us. (On the other hand, and just as often, people are annoyed and don’t have a clue…)

1) It’s REALLY cool. Watched a movie in bed earlier this morning. Read the New York Times without getting ink on my fingers. Checked email, and now typing with a full size keyboard. In case you missed my my point, IT’ S REALLY COOL.

2) I’m not sure if it is user friendly yet. So many things are just like the iPhone that it’s very familiar to me but others who really want to play with it are sometimes a little confused. One of my co-workers kept asking “Where’s the manual?” Apple doesn’t print manuals, they are on the machine. And that made her very uncomfortable.

3) It will change the world. Maybe this isn’t the actual machine that does, but very soon the new world of books, especially college textbooks, will be transformed from paper and ink to electrons and data packets.

Wish i could take two weeks off and play with it.

1) MUCH less blogging on the way up and down – typing while driving seems like a bad idea.

2) As those who know me, there is always two of anything.  More upon my return.

As a radio programmer who once marketed music programming software, I always claim that music programming is both an art and a skill that cannot be replaced by an automated “Genius”.   My experience with iTunes confirmed that – the “Genius” playlist seemed to focus on a small subset of my 7000 song library and very repetitive (just like a bad radio station).

So imagine my surprise (after just a few uses) to find myself a big advocate of the new “Genius Mix” feature of iTunes.  There are other reviews here that talk about the improvements in the way Apple classifies songs and how the genius feature works.  What I’ve found is that the Genius Mix really does present a well balanced but still compelling (and even sometime surprising) mix of music. While listening to the “Adult Alternative” mix iTunes added some deeper cuts from artists and albums I would not have considered in any playlist.  Genius also chose some of the free Starbucks “Pick of the Week” songs I had not listened to yet (yes, I’m the person that grabs one of every card on display).   And if you use the new downsample feature when you sync to your iPhone (squeezed 3100 songs onto my 16GB 3GS) the Genius Mix is a great way to listen to tunes on a long drive.  You must enable Genius in iTunes (it’s under the “Store” tab) and update Genius every time you add songs (I do it about once a week).

My “friends” Kevin Carter and Keith Berman write the very funny RAMP (Radio and Music Pros) Newsletter (subscribe at the link) after years writing the somewhat funny Radio and Records Daily newsletter that I’ve already forgotten the name of.  This morning (Weds 4/14) their take on a new TV show about radio was entertaining enough to share.

Leave it to TV to completely screw things up for radio yet again…. We recently told you about the show Life Unexpected on the CW, which is partly based around a guy/girl morning radio duo who falls in love and gets engaged. In this week’s episode, the TV writers’ appalling lack of radio knowledge was prominently displayed when the male half of the pair didn’t want to sign a five-year contract because — get this — he wasn’t sure where he’d be in five years. One educated guess: still in radio, finishing his five-year contract! Okay, then. We’re willing to bet that in today’s economic environment, if management actually dangled an actual five-year contract in front of a jock, they’d not only sign it in blood, but there’d (sic) probably also be some bonus leg-humping involved. [Time check, jingle out.]

I’ve worked at stations that have won awards, I’ve won awards, but this award is special.  It is given by the National Association of Broadcasters for public service.  So this is in response to how much good we’ve done in our community.  I’m happy and humbled to be part of a Crystal Award winning radio station.

NAB CRYSTAL RADIO AWARD PRESENTED TO WIKY-FM

LAS VEGAS — WIKY-FM Evansville, Ind. today was awarded the National Association of Broadcasters Crystal Radio Award. Since 1987, the NAB Crystal Radio Awards have recognized radio stations for their outstanding year-round commitment to community service.

Ten winners were chosen among 50 finalists. Recipients were recognized at today’s NAB Show Radio Luncheon.

WIKY-FM provided this description of its accomplishments in 2009:

WIKY. When the original owner (grandfather of the current CEO) chose the call letters, he wanted it to show his commitment to his community and the states it would serve -Indiana and Kentucky. Sixty years later, WIKY continues to serve the Indiana, Kentucky (and Illinois) tri-state with live local news, weather and public service programming 24 hours a day. Each week, WIKY airs more than 10 hours of locally produced news, weather and public service programming. In 2009, WIKY provided air time to promote local public service and nonprofit events at a value of just under $1 million. Our air staff and management donated more than 1,000 man hours to help organize and execute these and other events, In January, a devastating ice storm crippled the community, and for many listeners WIKY was their only source of emergency information. This past summer, the WIKY Morning Show’s “Riley Radiothon” raised more than $120,000 for Riley Hospital for Children. And in December, a one day remote broadcast by WIKY air staff on the coldest day of the year produced more than 16,000 Toy Town donations for distribution at Christmastime; it is not easy to separate public and community service from an average day on WIKY.

For more information on WIKY-FM’s accomplishments, contact Tim Huelsing at
tim@sccradio.com.

The NAB Show Radio Luncheon, sponsored by ASCAP, featured a presentation by Phil Hendrie, nationally syndicated radio host and satirist. During the luncheon, legendary Texas radio personality Ron Chapman was inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame.