Where are the schools of hard knocks that shape tomorrow’s leaders?
Seth Godin from “Tribes” fame whips the digital photo from his workplace camera exposing the model employee clocking in, reporting to a department head, performing expectations then leaning his boss has been replaced; coworkers terminated; push rewind and do it again until the factory closes.
During last weeks Sport Your School Colors Celebration…I wore a movie T-shirt.
Arriving in radio four years before high school graduation the idea of furthering the endeavor was taken over by an education that doesn’t exist unless you live it; billions of dollars spent on market by market research, oversaturated consultant opinions, endless music format changes, radio station receivership, purchase and repurchase, multiple management replacements, typewriters and correction ribbon to computers to smartphones, 45’s, albums, CD’s to MP3’s and the introduction of Rap and Hip Hop.
I’ve been playing radio since Ray Stevens and K-Tel owned bedroom turntables.
There’s not a book on earth honest enough to tell the tales of what Broadcasting truly is. I tried to write it only to hear from the publisher, “Who is this for? Radio people have already lived it and listeners aren’t ready to let go of the fantasy.”
A code of silence signed into company law by lawyer’s protecting waves that carry more haunt than a Halloween fun house keeps a lot of microphone magic from reaching the next Ryan Seacrest. Therefore what you hear today is plastic.
True Broadcaster’s don’t come from books nor do they begin the journey relentlessly running a Taco Bell drive thru window. The decision to one day play is no different than the invisible God given grip of your wrist that an upset steaming hot Mother uses to pull their child toward better behavior.
I’m thoroughly convinced that Broadcasting is more dangerous than LSD, Heroin and an ice cold Zima…with proper medical help you can escape a drug addiction.
This isn’t bashing! Radio is making brilliant decisions in the way of rewiring the paths connected to a listener’s life and style.
Alexander Stepanovich Popov’s original idea in 1895 was to move sound by way of transmitting. Without a school of hard knocks we would’ve never met The Lone Ranger, George Burns and Gracie Allen, the man who coined the Rock n Roll phrase Mr. Alan Freed, The Beatles, four in a row without talk, commercial free all music hours, Dick Clark, Casey Kasum, Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and Ronald M Popeil the genius behind the single object that drew me to the two speaker car stage the Mr. Microphone.
Where are the schools of hard knocks that shape tomorrow’s leaders?
The earth shattering story that didn’t make the front page was Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe’s trip to Capitol Hill where he feverishly tried to convince lawmakers to put vocation back into the education system.
I don’t want to hear about what private schools offer. Doing a more personalized chase for the diploma is no different than fine tuning college credits. Mr. Rowe isn’t asking the rich to enhance opportunity but to get national leadership and support to help generate a place for schools to give out a couple of hard knocks.
Plumbing, car mechanics, accounting, fashion, carpentry and more; I’m amazed at the number of college graduates I meet that aren’t doing what they studied. Not because there aren’t any jobs…their investment isn’t paying off because the real world hits you a little harder than a professor with a big thick set of state certified expectations.
The world of education has been blasted by layoffs and unheard of amounts of budget cuts but universities continue to make teachers. I’d get kicked out! Rather than put focus on child behavior I’d want to know more about the person wanting to be a teacher heading into a career that has no future until national decision makers realize we really are losing in the quest to be the best.
Seth Godin passionately prints into play a single thought, “Leaders don’t have things happen to them. They do things.”
I no longer wonder what would happen to America if the corporate side of this nation’s success decided to reinvest their interest in employees that have luggage. They’d spend less money trying to shape inexperience which opens the door for more gain on the grains of sand that keep you from toppling the competition.
Have you truly studied the makings of a local movie theater…every manager knows how to thread and repair the film or reprogram this new digital age of entertainment. Every manager puts value in the art of up selling the candy row. Every manager can man the ticket booth and I’ve yet to meet the movie theater manager that doesn’t rock out on the overtime hours without developing a complaint.
I love me some Tar Heels, UCLA Bruins, Wolf Pack, 49er’s and Blue Devils. I can say that while wearing a Milwaukee Bucks jersey. I’m a proud graduate from the school of hard knocks where we’re taught one rule: everyone’s a winner when you offer support to the chapters that are being written.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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