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Radio Make Goods

As a lad, I was raised on radio and later on I worked in radio.

Radio is the life of the imagination magnified by the heat of a hundred suns.  Television and film do all the cold thinking for you as you merely sit there and allow the experience to wash over you.  Radiophiles are the new active intellectuals of world.

I always admired the idea of the radio “Make Good” which is sort of related to the matter previously addressed here in — You Cannot Push a Shove — and a Make Good consisted of the re-airing of a commercial that was missed, had technical trouble, or was not fully played.

As the on-air announcer, you had total control over the Make Good.  You’d fill out a sheet of paper explaining what happened to the spot and you’d re-air the commercial as soon as you could within the same day part in which the original spot was supposed to run.

The ability to own the error and to instantly “make up for” a mistake — that may or may not have been your fault — was a tremendous and appreciated power given to the individual for the greater goodness of the company.

Make Goods are the free bottle of wine when your dinner is late.  The effort is appreciated, it adds value to your day, and a Make Good presumes the fault is not in the consumer, but in the business.

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A Blog in the Marketplace

Here’s how much David W. Boles’ Urban Semiotic is currently worth in the marketplace:

My blog is worth $924,325,404.30.
How much is your blog worth?

I’m not selling!

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But It’s Just a House…

by Nancy McDaniel

It wasn’t something I planned to do. I just happened to go to a board meeting in a new (to me) and magical neighborhood. I saw the house with a For Sale sign and that’s how it all started. My life was turned upside-down and became a “looking-at-a-new-house episode” of the past three weeks. It was an emotionally turbulent and extremely thought-provoking time for me.

“I Will Never Sell My House. Not EVER”
Despite what some people think (and I might wish), I am not a person who embraces change easily. I worked at the same company for over 28 years, have lived in the same house for over 26 years and stayed married to the same (wrong) man for nearly 10 years (well, so I figured that one out sooner. Maybe I just liked the job and house more. In fact, I once took a six-month leave of absence from my job because I was very stressed out. Finally I realized, when the time off wasn’t making me feel any better, that it wasn’t the job that was stressing me out; it was my marriage. Duh!)

My ex and I bought a house in an up-and-coming neighborhood (it wasn’t even listed as a “fixer upper;” it was already “fixed up”… sort of) in 1975. There was still some gang activity in the area, mostly just graffiti (oh, and the shooting at Uncle Frank’s, the hot dog stand a couple of blocks away. But they had THE best hot dogs and Polish sausage, so we went anyway, but just during the day).

Continue reading → But It’s Just a House…