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Is radio really dead?
Yestersday Seth Godin wrote a blog that was resent to my inbox about 15 times because my community of friends clearly thought there would be some interest or some sort of celebration on my behalf if the news was true, radio had come to the end.
To be clear that could not be further from the truth, there is a place for the mass mediums, all of them - but a profound change needs to occur in all of them. That isn't to say I think Seth is wrong and I would think that people in radio know that 17 minutes of commercials an hour isn't any more customer-centric than the issues at the newspaper or the need for personalized content on the television level.
But what I took out of this was not the doom and gloom that filled my inbox or the need to keep traffic and weather together on "the 1s" but this sentence; "It will be replaced by a new thing, the long tail of audio that's similar (but completely different) from what we were looking for from radio all along." Because here is the thing, there are so many brilliant people in radio and who have come from the radio industry that the disruption to that model is bound to come from someone in that tribe. It could be a new app or an existing one or even something that we cannot even imagine yet.
When I went about researching the lengths of songs at Top 40 I was a year or two ahead of people within in the company I worked for and other companies who attempted the same idea, the point being two people hatch an idea for a graduate thesis in Grand Rapids at the same time the idea is being discussed at much higher levels - people in these medium are innovating, the thing that should change is the speed.
Mass media is dead, long live mass media.
There will always be a need to reach "the masses" the only thing that will actually change, is the way in which they are reached. Which leaves the only logically question left, will you be the one who changes it?
WOW Show Episode 249
We are one episode away from the big 250, enjoy as Julian Garcia and I talk OSP vs Shogun and will Luke Rockhold + Michael Bisping kill each other tomorrow night in Sidney?
Has it been that long?
It is hard to believe I have been here for 30 days, that said, in the past month I have had some amazing conversations about "happiness." I put that word in quotes because it seems to be THE magic question everyone asks me, "are you happy" or "are you happier." What is interesting about the question is that I think it frames the world with the wrong lens.
My mother has taught Tai Chi for nearly as long as I was in radio, the elevator pitch on that martial art is doing amazing things with your body as your energy aligns with the energy of the planet. Using that logic, I have explained the past 30 days and more specifically, the lead up to the decision and then the leap like this; Happiness is not a goal to aim for, it is a result of making decisions about you and what you were designed to do - and going and doing that.
Every single person has a talent, whether you realize it or not. The trick is, when you identify the thing you are good at, you submit to it - happiness is bound to follow. For me, happiness is a direct result of the body responding to the energy around you. So, when you are at an office that is caustic, work at a job that you hate, or do something "for the money," those things will always pull you further and further away from what we call happiness, like a riptide of misery.
We are all given a limited time to make an impact and you will find that the closer you get to your "thing" the happier you become. My journey doesn't happen without a number of people who helped me get here, yours doesn't either so lean into your network and take a step towards happiness.
The real loser from last night?
Another midterm election has come and gone and aside from a pro-wolf win and a 58 vote difference between Lamonte and the winner in that race Holly Hughes the results were close but pretty unremarkable. The interesting note is that it appears only 40% of the people eligible to vote went out yesterday to take part in the democratic process, only 40%.
Which means that 60% of us thought invented a reason to not take part in the future of our state or our country. A wise man once said that of all the needs in the world mankind requires only two, the idea that we have a stake in our future and the idea that we are not alone. But these voter turnout numbers seem to consistently spit in the face of that idea.
Instead we are told that "it's okay, stay home - one vote won't make a difference" and in the case of Lamonte vs Hughes that could have been catastrophic for either side when it gets down to less than 60 votes. Why do we care so little about the country but so much about Brad Pitt, or Taylor Swift, or who won The Voice? Why when someone like Brad Pitt or Taylor Swift tells us to go and vote that doesn't have the same impact as photos of their wedding or wardrobe malfunction would have?
In my Mass Media class, I talk a lot about the differences between George Orwell's 1984 and Adolus Huxley's Brave New World and when you look at midterm election turnouts the comparison is not only easy, it becomes necessary.
Orwell wrote about a world where we are being spied on or looked in on by "Big Brother," so we change the way we act because it feels as if we are being watched - we tend to become very boring, very normal, non-threatening individuals. When it was written it was a modern take on the Jeremy Bentham's idea of the panopticon (which is not an awesome NSA Transformer), the idea that you can be watched at any point eliminates the need to watch you because the threat gives the desired result and there is certainly a bit of that today.
Huxley wrote about a world where we gave up our need to think over to an entity that made our life easy, safe, and again non-threatening. In a modern-world the idea that we are so dumb we failed to even notice that we have given up our rights and maybe that is why we are where we are today.
But look around. Does it seem like a better place than a decade ago? I borrowed a blog from Seth Godin this week that talked about if that 60% (we will use Michigan numbers) got out and voted in every election from here on out, we could dramatically change the country in under 8 years. But what would make you get out and start?
Older men were the keys victory last night
Because THAT is what we should be talking about today. THAT is how we might move forward.
-Eric
10 Terrible Reasons Not to Vote
Election day is TUESDAY and that means that you should vote...You might remember this gem from the prelims in August but it isn't any less true today then it was back then.