We spent the long weekend in an ambitious assault on the downstairs bedrooms.  With the imminent, Incoming! kiddo we needed to get some serious work done on her room and the guest room, and decided we'd do almost all of it this weekend.  We completely redid both bedrooms - and intensive effort of new paint, new carpet, and some little touches we ended up awfully proud of.

I loved this picture, don't ask why I decided to take a picture of messy paint tools.

Carpet out, paint #1 on the wall.  Very cool textured paintable wall paper we found at Lowes mostly up.

Uncle Frank doing some touches on the walls.

AND - walls painted, lighting installed.  Just waiting on carpet today then we will move in and start setting up the room.

No parenting book has had a greater impact on me than Cormac McCarthy's the Road (and I realize it is not meant as a subsitute for what to expect).

On the flight back from NYC I finished reading The Road.  I know the book has received countless great reviews (and a Pulitzer Prize).  It is an exceptional book.  Reading it as an expectant father gave the story even greater depth and force.  Simple and profound, it is such a testament of endurance, love, and hope.  I can think of few things more critical and important.  Even in the darkest times and blackest moments, it is those traits that I think not simply carry us through, but push and drive us to the future.

Google announced the development of an algorithm to track what employees were likely to quit and when.  Its built around predicted the behavior that leads up to someone leaving the company.

An incredible HR tool, certainly addresses a concern about brain drain.  But I wonder what happens when you find yourself on the chopping block because the algorithm has determined your days are numbered anyway.

Google's algorithm helps the company "get inside people's heads even before they know they might leave," said Laszlo Bock, who runs human resources for the company.

What happens when the algorithm misses?  I have certainly had a few Google Searches that the algorithm did not get right.  Would hate to think my job was on the line and my position and stake in company threatened by an algorithms attempt to know more about me than I know about myself. 

ONEsite was highlighted in San Francisco's KRON feature on the Web 2 Expo for helping to drive more effective and cost efficient online strategies.

Radio is Broken (Hearted).  Like so many industries built on content and advertising, Radio has found itself struggling against falling ad revenue and increased competitive pressure from the internet and new media.  Like so many industries, Radio was not broken by the economic downturn, it has been broken for years, but now finds itself in rapid decline.

Radio has always struggled with the fundamental conflict of advertising.  It attracts audiences with compelling content, but drives those same audiences away with advertising injected right into the middle of the content its listeners most want to hear.

The relationship with the listener is what has kept radio viable.  Against the internet, against satellite, against the iPod, radio’s local relationship with its listeners is what has made it competitive – for listeners and for advertisers.  Not simply connecting listeners with their favorite music, but connecting them with local DJs, content, and the station itself.  Services like Pandora create a closer bond with a listener’s music preferences, satellite and the internet provide more variety without the commercials, but no other format or delivery system can recreate.

Now as the industry desperately tries to find some footing, many companies are abandoning that relationship with the listener.  The drive to strip stations of their individual identities and replace them with common brands and syndicated, nation-wide programming will kill Radio.  This is how Radio now breaks its relationship with the listener, by taking away everything that made that relationship special and unique.

Radio cannot deliver music that better match a listener’s tastes better than their own iPod or Pandora.  They cannot deliver more variety with less advertising than satellite.   Their competitive advantage is the local, close, intimate relationship with the listener.  Losing that relationship costs them their competitive advantage.

Radio will only stay competitive by strengthening those relationships.  By getting closer with the listener, by shifting advertising to be more meaningful and more involved than it has ever been before (and honestly by doing so making it more effective).  By connecting with the listener on air, online, and on mobile, by having that relationship anywhere and everywhere.  By strengthening the connection between the station and its personality and the listeners, and the listeners and one another.  This is what will make Radio viable and competitive, but it also seems to be on very few companies’ radar.

At least it makes it easy to pick who will be the long-term survivors.