The Problem with Most People - the meaning of majority, and how much of our culture is driven by cohorts much smaller than half

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   The problem with most people is -

   
   

   "Most People"

   
   

   You hear it a lot. “Most people” say, or do, or think, this.  Or that.

   
   

   In this political season, you will see characterizations about what “most people” think, say or do. People who are liberal, people who are conservative, presuming that most of the world agrees with them.

   
   

   “Most” could be seen as a democratizing word. But what is “most?” A majority? Half of a group, plus one? 51% still leaves a lot of people out.

   
   Meanwhile, our society is driven by cohorts much smaller than a majority.

   
   

   Case in point – The Super Bowl.
   
   There have been 46 of them. In 2012, more people in the United States watched the Super Bowl than have ever viewed ANY television program – an estimated 111.3 million people watched via broadcast, plus another estimated 2 million online via the NFL and NBC. Huge. The most watched television program in American history.

   

   http://paidcontent.org/

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   Even bigger than the number of viewers turned in for the final episode of the groundbreaking TV series “MASH” in 1983 (nearly 106 million estimated viewers).
   
   The audience was large for the game and the spectacle. The ratings company A.C. Nielsen estimates that the halftime show by Madonna had an estimated 114 million people tuned in.
   

   

   Christopher Polk/Getty Images

   
   
3. But ponder this:

   
   

   The February 2012 population of the United States registered in at more than 312 million people.

   
   In the United States, if we go by what the ratings tell us, at 111 million or 117 million or even 150 million, MOST PEOPLE DID NOT WATCH the Super Bowl in 2012.
4. I believe that a majority of my friends and associates watched at least part of the game. It seemed like everybody on Facebook that I know was commenting about it. The Super Bowl was a universal meme for a nation. That is my perception.

   
   

   More than half of the country did not watch. “Most people” did not watch the Super Bowl. The biggest, most unifying media event of our age, and more people watched it than ever, but a majority of Americans did not watch.
   One of the biggest problems with “most people” (the phrase, not the people) is that even if it is NOT inflating the power or viewpoint of the “most” group, it is often disregarding the “other” people not in the “most.”
   

   
   There are people who are older than you or younger than you who have none of your shared cultural references. There are people of different gender with a totally different view. Race, ethnic background, religion or non-theism, education, physical ability…the list of our differences is long.

   
   

   When you recognize America as a complex collection of diverse people, hopes, experiences, abilities and accomplishments, the folly of using the phrase “most people” can begin to sink in. The beauty of our representational democracy is that we can find a way for most people to live together with opportunity and responsibilities that we agree to as a part of our compact with each other as Americans.

   
   

   Beyond a few certitudes, in journalism, in life, in art, we try to discern what matters.
   
   

   Most people breath.
   
   Most people eat.

   
   Having more than half of a population care about something is a big deal. 
   
   In the United States, we have that with our political system. Most people eligible to vote in the presidential election of 2008 DID vote (62%). The electorate was the most diverse in US History.
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   Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History | Pew Hispanic Center
   

   Released: April 30, 2009 I. Overview The electorate in last year's presidential election was the most racially and ethnically diverse in ...

   

   Pewhispanic
6. But it is also the case that most people in the US who were eligible to vote did not vote for the president in office. More voting-eligible people did NOT vote as people who voted for the winner.
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   Newsroom: Voting: Voter Turnout Increases by 5 Million in 2008 Presidential Election, U.S. Census Bureau Reports
   

   About 131 million people reported voting in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, an increase of 5 million from 2004, according to a new t...

   

   Census
8. As you listen to the rhetoric of anyone – in culture, art, government, religion – if they speak of certitude about what “most people” want, they are probably leaving some people, and often, many people, out.
   
   How we manage to accommodate our differences is a challenge that civil society must learn over and over.  In the United States, it has been a remarkable struggle, and a remarkable strength.  Here's hoping that the coming year shows "most people" understanding that we are in this together, even though we may not see things from the same place. 
   

The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data..or is it?

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   In New Orleans in 2003, at what was the last Public Radio Conference, ever, I did a presentation on Digital Radio, in the very early times of HD Radio.
   
   
   

   

   Before my session, my colleague David Liroff (formerly of WGBH and CPB) did a session on what PBS and U.S. Public TV had learned through the challenging upgrade to HDTV in the years prior. David shared a lot of great things in his session, but prefaced it with an aphorism he had borrowed from someone else:
   
   
   THE PLURAL OF ANECDOTE IS NOT DATA

1. Such and easy and true statement. One story does not make for the evidence to prove something, and a collection of stories may not be an accurate picture of reality. The use of real or apocryphal anecdotes in politics notwithstanding.
   
   
   As aphorisms go, it is a good one.
   
   
   David Liroff never claimed credit for it, but he was the first to share it with me. In looking into the history of the statement, I recently found origins going back to the 1960’s
   
   
   Oddly enough, the “source” of the quote may not have said what several of us have adopted.
   
   
   In a blog post by David Smith, the credit goes to Raymond Wolfinger (presumed to be the political scientist from Stanford and then UC-Berkeley) as the first to coin the phrase – but with a difference:
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   Over the years, in speeches, lectures and conversation, I have said, “the plural of anecdote is not data,” and have been met with nodding heads and chuckles.
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   Revolutions: The plural of anecdote is data, after all
   

   I've used the quotation "The plural of anecdote is not data" in various talks over the years, never knowing the original source.

   

   Revolutionanalytics
4. Professor Wolfinger claims to have said “the plural of anecdote is data.”

   
   

   And I guess that is true, too. Data is data. Whether it is data that allows you to make appropriate measurements or judgments is a different issue.

   
   

   This takes me to a different thought about most people. Well, not actually most people, but of the phrase, “most people.”

   
   

   That will be for another day.

   
   

The Gift of the Krumkake

A wonderful thing about traditions is they can help you rekindle good things that deserve to be repeated, especially in showing others that you care.

When I first came to Pittsburgh in 1995, I found the city filled with kind people, civil driving, and a staff at WDUQ that tended to be the generous, gift-exchanging kind of folk.

For the early years, when we were fewer in number, as I was the General Manager, I would try to find special gifts like books and things. But, over time, as the years passed and the station grew, I ran out of book ideas unique enough for a burgeoning staff. There were only so many editions of “Life’s Little Instruction Book,” after all.

So, food became the next thing to share. Cub Scout Popcorn, given my association with all of that. Then, as my sons moved on to adulthood, what next?

Little did I realize that a longstanding Hanley family tradition was in need of extending.

For decades, my mother had made Krumkake. A not-widely known Norwegian rolled cookie. Owing to my mother’s Danish heritage, she had taken up making this cookie as her primary holiday baking activity back in the 70’s. It uses a lot of eggs and butter, and has some special features.

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Krumkake

A Scandinavian Christmas cookie from the Danish side of the family

3 well beaten eggs

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c butter

1/2 c flour

1 teaspoon extract of choice (I use vanilla and almond)

You melt the butter, blend it all together and bake it on a special iron (from Norway, of course!). Roll and let cool.

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For years, my mother had used a single iron that was placed over a stovetop burner. While the cookie you make and then roll was perfectly round in this iron, it was also very time consuming and less than perfect at keeping precise heating.

Later, my mother bought an “electric” two-sided iron. Instead of one cookie every 90 seconds, you could make two!

(wonder of wonders, I found one of my own in Pittsburgh at Wholey’s in the strip!)

The “roll and let it cool” part is what gets you. Despite what you may see online (and in the box of my electric krumkake iron), the wooden roller is not something we’ve ever used.

Instead, you take the hot baked cookie off the iron, put it down on a counter and quickly and with some danger, roll the cookie by hand. Or should I say, by fingertips!

As cookies go, this recipe uses a LOT of eggs and butter. The batch I show here was using 9 eggs and three sticks of butter. And that cookie, when it comes off the iron, is HOT!

They can be served with whipped cream, sprinkled powdered sugar or just plain as is. I have seen variations, like the mix of flour doubled up, which makes for a doughier cookie, but this is the recipe I’ve settled on.

One trial effort this year, from Laura’s suggestion, was to take an unrolled cookie and use those tiny SOLBRÄND plastic bowls from Ikea to make a tasty pastry bowl out of the new shape.

More testing to be done…but whipped cream, ice cream, fruit – it is all good.

Krumkake is what I started to share with my “family” at WDUQ. Hundreds of cookies, a dozen or two at a time. Many plastic containers, carefully packed with festive paper towel wrapping.

That was a few years ago, also around the same time that my mother was no longer able to make these cookies, so it has been good to keep the tradition going. And share them with my mother, father and their neighbors, too.

Like my mother before me, December is now a month where eggs and butter fill the fridge, the smells of melting butter and vaporizing almond and vanilla extract fills the air. I even taught my youngest son, Jon, how to make them.

This year, with WDUQ gone, I’m not making quite so many cookies, but still in the hundreds. I’ve managed to go through several dozen eggs, share Krumkake with friends and family in Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, California and Michigan.

I don’t plan on letting the tradition fade anytime soon.

All the best of great food, friends, family and the holidays to you now and every day.

The Kind Recognition of Your Peers

In May and July of 2011, some last bits of tribute were paid to the first public radio station in Pittsburgh. Before this is all-too-distant memory, I thought it a good idea to share those awards.

May 9, 2011

At the Press Association of Western Pennsylvania 2011 Golden Quill Awards, WDUQ received the "Service to Journalism" award.

The award was in recognition of the entire staff of WDUQ throughout its almost 62 year history. I was asked to say a few words on May 9. Circumstance truncated their delivery, but here they are in full:

The radio act of 1927 charged broadcasters serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity." It was the privilege of the staff of WDUQ to serve as the steward for this rare and valuable treasure for the city and the citizens that mean so much to us.

In 1946, Father Joseph Lauritis founded the journalism department at Duquesne, following up a few years later with this FM Radio experiment, at a time when pretty much no one had an FM Radio.

December 1949, Duquesne University's President, the very reverend Francis P. Smith said, "the university feels privileged to act as the instrument for educational radio in the Pittsburgh area. It looks upon this activity as a high responsibility to the community it serves."

December 15, 1949. So began the service to this community of WDUQ-FM. From then until now, there were just a handful of managers (not counting "interim"). Father Lauritis, B. Kendall Crane and Ken Duffy; Judy Jankowski and me. 61 years - that spans the earliest days of public radio, to the founding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR. At the time I left WDUQ in 2011 - nearly 200,000 listeners in Pittsburgh, about 30 million NPR listeners, nationwide.

Through all of that time, WDUQ continued to not just be a part of the public broadcasting community, but of the community of PITTSBURGH journalists and broadcasters, of citizens and participants in one of the most storied and vibrant media and journalism communities in the nation. Not just aligned with public radio, but with the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association, the Pittsburgh Radio Organization and the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters and with scores of community institutions and organizations. Hundreds of students, full-time professionals and volunteers passed through our hallways and on the airwaves.

As this honor you bestow on WDUQ tonight pays tribute to the contributions of WDUQ toward journalism, I must make note of our longest-standing employee and stalwart promoter of journalism ethics and civic engagement. WDUQ News Director Kevin Gavin. Kevin has been the guide for our telling of Pittsburgh's story on public radio since not long after NPR came to be. Starting as a student himself, Kevin has instilled the ethics and inquiry of journalism into the DNA of 90.5FM and into the minds and ideals of WDUQ's staff, plus of hundreds of students at Duquesne University, many of whom are still active as journalists.

Please accept my gratitude for this honor on behalf of Kevin Gavin, Mark Nootbaar, John Boyle, Alexandria Chaklos, Larkin Page-Jacobs, Erika Beras, Bob Studebaker, Tony Mowod, Helen Wigger, Fred Serino, Vicky Rumpf, Mary Lloyd, Bob Addleman, Nancy Wood, Mark Bertolet, Chuck Leavens, Bee Barnett, Mike Plaskett, Mark Yacovone, John Johnson, Shaunna Machosky, Joan Swanson, Sean Dougherty, and so many, many more.

It is with humility and great appreciation on behalf of all of those involved with WDUQ since 1949 that we say "thank you."


July 13, 2011

The Public Radio Regional Organization "PRRO" Award, granted to Scott Hanley, July 13, 2011.

The PRRO award was a total surprise to me, presented at a national conference for all of public radio which just happened to be held in Pittsburgh this year. The Award was delivered just before the NPR Annual Meeting on July 13, which just happens to be my birthday.

As it was a total surprise, I had nothing prepared to say but did share my great appreciation for recognition by my colleagues and peers.

But here are the remarks from the presenter that day:

Thank you…. Good afternoon, I’m Christina Kuzmych, President of Public Radio in Mid-America, and General Manager of Wyoming Public Radio.


I’d like to ask my fellow Regional Presidents to join me in presenting the PRRO Award.
· Jeanne Fisher, Eastern Region Public Media,
· Paul Stankavich, Western States Public Radio,
· Frank Lanzone, California Public Radio,
· Georgette Bronfman, President, PRRO

Each year the Regional Organizations present the PRRO award.
It given to an individual whose work has contributed significantly to the health and growth of Public Radio.

This year’s Award is a beautifully restored AM broadcast Bendix radio dating from 1946, with a built- in loop antenna, and sculpted wood cabinet.

The PRRO award honors the “unsung heroes” of public radio – the ones who often work behind the scenes, who move our industry forward-- and who deserve recognition from the system.

This year’s recipient can be called a “Renaissance Broadcaster” – an individual who is equally at home in programming, production, engineering, digital technology, fundraising, administration, teaching, governance, and whose work cuts across all radio formats of news, music, and public affairs.

Our recipient trained to be a singer, but soon embraced radio and made it into a lifelong journey and passion.

Our recipient is an innovator, an instigator, and an implementer.
All of us gathered here today have benefited directly from this individual’s work.


Our recipient was
· Twice elected to the NPR Board
· Served as Chair of the NPR Distribution/Interconnection Committee, and helped launch Content Depot .
· Served on the National Radio Systems Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association.
· Was Co-founder of Jazzworks, the 24-hour jazz service used by many stations
· Mentored hundreds of public radio professionals
· And, combining singing, radio, and technical experience, our recipient was instrumental in producing the yearly PRC Talent Shows, remembered so fondly by many managers.


Our recipient often shared ideas with managers and shaped our thinking. Here’s an example: [quote]
“It has been remarkable to see us grow from a shy, humble, striving and earnest enterprise into a massively influential media movement.
But I fear that we have bought into some of our own hype and the hype heaped upon us. We should still be earnest. We should still be striving. We should still be humble. We aspire to do great things – but we should be very wary of the hubris of believing that it is all about us.
[It’s not.]
It is about Mission, Stewardship. Service."

It's our pleasure to introduce this year's PRRO award recipient – [who is also celebrating his birthday today]

And his name is...Scott Hanley!

And there, in a lower level conference room at the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, applause and even the singing of "happy birthday." It was a moving experience for which I remain humbled and thankful.

In 1995, President John Murray and Provost Michael Weber hired me to do a job which I was honored to perform, with people who cared about their craft, their art, their service, their listeners, the public and each other. A community grew around that service that came to trust and believe in WDUQ, even in some controversial and challenging times.

Sometimes, you get to do the good and right things because they are good and right things. Sometimes, you have to grow and evolve in times of challenge and change. In leading a fulfilling life, I believe it isn’t just what you do, but how you do it and whom you get to do it with.

To receive two marvelous nods of acknowledgement for the legacy of WDUQ this year means the world to me.

Happy Flag Day

For some reason, flag day has about 87 occurrences on my iPhone today. There is some conflict with iCal, Mobile me (don't get me started) and things that go back to my Palm Treo and maybe even the Palm Tungsten T3...

But with all of those "Flag Day" flags, I nearly let the day go without noting it.

To that end, I turn to the Downtown Detroit Hudson's department store of my youth. It was the a guaranteed visit for Mom and me. We went every Thursday after getting parts at Westinghouse for my Dad's business (at least before I was old enough for school). The Mickey Mouse Sundae with the meringue shell collar and the chocolate wafer cookies was a winner. The televisions in that store were where we learned that JFK had been shot.

And Flag Day? Hudson's had that covered.

A day to salute the symbol of our national aspirations.

Happy Flag Day!

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish*

Douglas Adams. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Thanks to my time in public radio, I got to meet and interview him in 1982. My time in public radio has offered me many great opportunities to meet, interview and engage with a lot of remarkable people. Authors, artists, politicians, business leaders, trouble-makers and problem solvers.

From a cowboy who was also a pilot in the Berlin airlift who lived in the Big Thicket of Texas to presidents of the United States. Public radio gave me the privilege to meet people, hear and share stories, move hearts and (sometimes) change minds.

As I finish out my last official day with WDUQ FM, I'm thinking about the past 30 years.

I leave enriched by my 16 years at WDUQ, so proud of the work I and my staff, our volunteers and listeners did, together. But, it's time.

This is not unlike the "walk away" I did as an active musical performer. Those parts of your life are always a part of your life. But life is not static. It moves. It evolves. It changes. Sometimes, when you find it repeating itself, perhaps that's a good time to seek a new perspective.

In going through old clippings, I came across some things from my first months at WDUQ in Pittsburgh in 1995.

I came in to WDUQ at the same time as the "class of 1994," when the U.S. House and Senate flipped from total control from Democrats to total control by Republicans.

Important work, treasured colleagues, conflicts and change to adapt to. It was always thus.

I have deep concerns about the NPR, the stations, the industry that I am leaving.

But as I'm still on the WDUQ payroll for a few more hours, I will still say "we."

It has been remarkable to see us grow from a shy, humble, striving and earnest enterprise into a massively influential media movement. But I fear we have bought into some of our own hype and hype heaped upon us.

We should still be earnest. We should still be striving. We should still be humble. We aspire to do great things - but we should be very wary of the hubris of believing it is about us.

It is about mission. Stewardship. Service. Otherwise, we (NPR) are just a modest sized media company that happens to file a 990.

Over the past decade, there was great fretting about how NPR was not a digital company - that people of our experience and age could only "speak digital with an accent."

I think the greater concern is having leadership that is not fully immersed in the values and vision of NPR and public media.

We cannot afford to "speak mission with an accent."

So, I wish all my colleagues in public radio the very best, encourage everyone to think about mission most of all. The devices we use to connect to our listeners and our communities are not as important as the connections themselves. And the connections are between people.

To my "family" at WDUQ, you were and are the best at the mission of public service and broadcasting I could have ever had the privilege to spend a third of my life with. You will always be in my thoughts and in my heart.




* The title of the 4th book in the increasingly inaccurately titled trilogy "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. This was also a phrase first attributed to dolphins in the late 1970's BBC radioplay that started it all. It has to do with grateful porpoises and their departing good wishes as they ducked out before the earth was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. When I met Douglas Adams, he was embarking on a book tour upon the release of the first of the comic novels derived from the radioplays. He was very tall and had a lot of hair back then. I was not tall, but also had hair at the time.

The books have a cheerier ending than the radioplay.

Yelling in America - John Adams had his loud days, too

The most important things are best shared without shouting:

I love you;
We're giving you the job;
I'm going to have to let you go;
You have cancer

This isn't an original idea, but it's one that has been on my mind of late, especially with the tone of political discourse this month.

You can't think well while you're yelling. You can't think well when you're sobbing. And the folks on the the "receive" side aren't doing so well, either.

That's not to say yelling or tears aren't important. Extreme emotions have their place. But at some point, the adrenaline eases, a calm presents itself and you need to face your conflicts, your fears, your hopes, your choices. You think. You decide.

When plotting a future, phrases that fit on a bumper sticker cannot explain the details, the nuance, the plan.


Loud Advocacy is Not New

Protest is a long tradition in the United States. Sometimes, protesters gain influence and power, sometimes they don't.

A recent couple of segments from the NPR program (produced by WNYC, New York) On the Media looked into some of the current spate of emotional activism from a broader timeline.

The strategies being used by some conservative activists today have been gleaned from the playbook of liberal activist Saul Alinsky. In an interview with Bob Garfield, a discussion of the importance of passion came up with The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza.

Ryan Lizza "There’s a famous story. Whenever Alinsky would have a new student coming to organize, he would ask them, why do you want to be an organizer, and they would always say, well, I want to help others, you know, I want to devote my life to doing good. And he would scream back at them, no, you want to organize for power."

If you have or get power, you should try to do something with it. Even if you are striving to be heard to at least have some power, you need more than a slogan on a bumper sticker.

Power in the American model of representational democracy is supposed to protect the minority as well promote the will of the majority. That requires discussion. But discussion only starts once the yelling stops. Yet, when some are ready to listen and interact, others may still passionately clamor only to be heard. After a while, the "calm" ones may get frustrated and start yelling again.

Fortunately, the cycle can wind down as the passions echo. As long as nothing else comes up to wind the passions up again.

American discourse is often loud, sometimes even irrational and violent. In 1856, the Caning of Senator Charles Sumner was a prime example, as the "debate" in congress became violent on the floor of "the world's most deliberative body." The passions were high on both sides, the language harsh and cruel. After an escalation of verbal jabs, U.S. House member Preston Brooks of South Carolina came into the Senate chamber and beat Sumner senseless with a cane. Sumner took three years to recover.

The anger and passion on both sides of the slavery issue was superheated. Just a few years later, the country was embroiled in a brutal civil war.

The current health care debate has not devolved to 1856 levels. But the passions do seem pretty high. I wonder if it has something to do with our current wave of cathartic overload.

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, the opening of raw nerves of pain and anger was huge and nearly universal. The sensory overload has continued as we've added in the din of computer gaming, web sites, talk radio, 24/7 cable news, blogs, myspace, facebook and twitter. It's possible to be in constant stimulus mode, much of it interactive, and rapidly reflecting and inflating personal viewpoints to an astounding degree.

We have many deep feelings, emotions and data points constantly bombarding us. It is easy to get addicted to the drama and energy. Reinforcing that has been the ease of connection with like-feeling and like-minded people in a crowd, online or in mass media. It is more possible than ever to not be exposed to a viewpoint different from your own in a reasoned way.

With a world of choice in front of us, it easier than ever to hear only what we want to hear.


Other things worthy of passion

John Adams was not a necessarily easygoing politician. His administration passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Those acts were largely about censoring and punishing dissent when it was perceived that the "other side" had gotten out of hand. Later, the rejection of the Alien and Sedition Acts helped set the stage for the relative independence of American journalism, today.

Even with his missteps, Adams' passion had a purpose, a vision, a yearning.

John Adams painting by John Trumbell

In 1780 John Adams wrote to Abigail Adams about the priorities of the new society he was dreaming of:

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

I hope we can find a way to get back on that sort of continuum. It is important to have passion, but there's more to passion than anger and frustration. Art, music, painting and architecture don't have to be partisan to be meaningful.

The arts are full of stimulation and passion. But they also require solitude, discipline, training and practice. Who has time for that?

Combined with the emotional upheaval of the past eight years, we've been cutting the arts in our schools and communities. In our rush to equip our youth and workforce with skills, we've risked the ability to help our citizens find meaning.



Media and New Media

Power has value. But if you get power, there is the responsibility of wielding it. Which reminds me of this quote:

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-- Abraham Lincoln

With our convergence of technology and communication, we all have power.

The wild card in the latest round of our democratic protest process is the swirling confluence of Old and New Media together. The power and influence of web sites, twitter, facebook, newspapers, radio, TV and cable feed back on each other, fueled by planned and unplanned events. Professionals and amateurs are a part of a cacophonous din like we've never heard before.

There is a "power" in the combination of all of this media, from twitter to radio to cable news and more that has not yet taken responsibility for the influence it wields. With social media, even the smallest among us has the ability to make a lot of noise.

No one is in charge and everyone is in charge. Everyone has the potential for fomenting protest and spreading it across the globe.

This, too, will change. Social media has given more people more tools than ever, but the novelty is already wearing off a bit. Irresponsible use of the power of social media may, over time, fade into the background as more noise.

Everyone has the potential to discover, discuss and exchange, too. When we start to have a conversation, we can talk about what we are for, and maybe discuss where we are going. I just hope that current conduits of communication (and the people who run, feed and use them) don't drive a wedge between citizens when there is so much else in our society we can get together on.

The dream becomes that we all have power and we all take responsibility. And, maybe we can plan to sing, dance and paint a bit more, too.

Great Brands Deliver

Apple does not rely on focus groups.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use focus groups, but it does lead to an important point: Apple is sure of its brand.

Apple has had a tumultuous history. Today, the company has a solid brand, direction and products that people clamor for.

Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates and Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs in the 1999 cable movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"

The 1999 made-for-cable movie Pirates of Silicon Valley is worth a rental or even purchase. Two statements from it stand out to me at the moment. One, from Bill Gates, I can only paraphrase: “a good product with great marketing can overcome a great product with good marketing.”

And, from Steve Jobs, “Real Artists Ship.”

“Pirates” came out in 1999 - two years before the launch of the iPod, which has had a huge impact on, well, everything. Learning lessons, it seems, Apple solved the database challenges of iTunes, delivered an easy-to-use interface for both the computer and the iPod, found a price point that worked - and, most importantly, nailed it on the marketing piece.

Delivering at the right time and place certainly helps, but the brand of Apple seemed to have evolved to Passion, Vision and Execution.

Still, I believe that focus groups can be helpful. As a “company therapy” process, you can get a sense of how your brand is perceived among your current or potential customers.

At my public radio station, WDUQ, Pittsburgh, we learned that both our NPR news brand and our jazz brand were core to our identity and a part of what people found admirable about us. The group that helped us with this evaluation were bright 20-somethings under the leadership of Dr. Robert Swinehart of the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. They liked us - they really liked us!

It was 1997 or 1998. That early internet bubble was still inflating. The book "FOCUS" was on my mind, as well as Built to Last. This was all supposed to be about "one thing."

And it was. But not about news, or jazz or intelligent talk or whatever. If you look at the 1998 era graph put together at the end of the CMU project, the core was about trust, passion, conviction and authenticity.

We often confuse Brands with formats or devices or the "thing" of the moment. Yet, if we go too far in "extension," we no longer have a core to be passionate about.

In looking at what these young eyes had seen in us, and looking in the mirror, we saw that we had something that could work. Focused enough to fit our sensibilities and experience, yet broad enough to stretch us. A challenge that looked to be worthwhile and fun.

Armed with the information and confidence that WDUQ had some unique, positive traits, the next step was execution fueled with growing passion. Over the course of the next decade, we worked to deliver quality news and jazz programming, partnering on a high level with scores of other like-minded groups and individuals in Pittsburgh to build and grow our civic and cultural goals.

Our staff jumped in to the telling of our story, our vision - to brand and market what we were about, including great work with Fitting Group.

A bit more than a decade later, WDUQ doubled its total audience. The jazz "side" of the station has more listeners than the whole station served in 1996. The news "side" of the station is among the the most diverse in the country, indexed against our market demographics. Yet, for our listeners, the station has no sides, really.

The brand of WDUQ is of a non-profit media outlet that reaches out, everyday, across a diverse array of people, activities and ideas. We have a vision for an engaged, aware Pittsburgh that connects with the world, and we hustle to live up to that vision, every day.

To get love back from your customers, passion helps a lot. But, in the end, great brands deliver.

This post was adapted from a guest blog post written for the Fitting Group.

From the 2009 CES

The Consumer Electronics Show is a HUGE event, with typically more than 100,000 attendees. I have attended in the past as Press and as an "industry affiliate." It is not a public convention, and is intended for people tied to the CE industry in some way beyond being a consumer.

Two years ago, the number of attendees went up dramatically, with a concern that a lot of "fans" were getting registered. Last year, the requirements to register were tightened up substantially and the crowds were still massive but more manageable (at an estimated 140,000).

This year, the economy has done what tighter rules could not. I have no idea what the attendance is, and the preshow estimate is for a decline of anywhere from 8 to 20%

This doesn't mean this is a failed show at all. It is interesting that the percentage of people wearing suits to those in T shirts is much higher. A lot of meetings are being held formally and informally. You can get around the exhibit hall with much less hassle.

I've been in meetings and events but have managed to see the exhibits, too. I'll be posting more, later.

There are a lot of international visitors, as usual. Many buyers, distributors, manufacturers, big firms, tiny companies. The mix is engaging and interesting.



But it is just not as crowded as it used to be.


With the TV Zombies roaming around, to give us "awareness" about the switchover to all digital TV in the US in February 2009, the smaller crowds are probably a good thing.















Zombies move slow.