We’ve been told for decades that to get the lightbulb it required one thousand Thomas Edison failed attempts. Parental figures around the world use the inventor’s bad days as news to use while teaching a growing imagination to never give up.
Then suddenly life forces you TO dance in a pair of middle aged shoes and everything deemed cool during teen proms and a set of ten twenties comes back faster than the speed of light.
“Why didn’t I trust my gut feeling?”
“I still believe it can sell.”
“Why didn’t I find someone who shared the same vision?”
Tribes author Seth Godin knows all too well that it’s never easy to give up on a great idea. Look at the music industries addiction to press compact discs inside a digital age. I laughed out loud when John Boy and Billy slipped me Bob Seger’s approach to gaining a little air play; a double sided sliver of vinyl that screams 45.
Without hesitation I rushed back into my production studio and hung it on the wall! The goal is to count how many times a person born after 1992 will ask, “What’s that?”
Ideas are gimmicks. They’re designed by the universe to stimulate what otherwise would be emptiness. We’re hit in the forehead with an idea and without a doubt lesser than a few physically pick up the challenge to see it through to its total potential.
I find Clear Channels forecast and vision of I Heart Radio two pages off from reaching the generation that’ll live by its realization. Not because it’s a bad idea but rather too confusing for beer swigging Kevin and Shopaholic Sharon to change their every day stale routine to, “I gotta do what? Can’t my car just come with it?”
To change a habit “chance” has to be given permission to breathe. Someone or several somebody’s set off on a vision quest; it’s what they bring back to other pioneers that quickly shape possibility.
Thomas Jefferson didn’t send Lewis and Clark on a wild goose hunt. Documenting the Louisiana Purchase opened the gates for new beginnings. I’m sure Rush Limbaugh would’ve been all over it, “What kind of a President are you? The land was cheap because there’s nothing there! Who in their right mind can trust a man that believes the hard working, deeply dedicated people of the original thirteen colonies wanted their roots to be shipped out from the places they diligently and faithfully fought for?”
Seth Godin isn’t shy when expressing the importance of never over feeding a great idea. How many copycat Snugglies have flooded the Christmas market? Apple’s Ipod and pad might have been the first but thanks to a community of digital bloodhound inventors the connection to mental destruction continues to grow. Why are you buying music when your favorite songs are free on I Heart Radio?
My support of I Heart continues to earn me hotter than hell flames of disgusted discussions, “How dare you turn your back on the broadcast industry that freed you from Montana!”
“This is the end of a legacy!”
“You’re a fricken bone head loser for believing in the one thing that could silence every tower from Myrtle Beach, SC to Victoria, BC.”
Wow! Where were these brave warriors when it came to perfecting the greatest radio break? Love the spicy talk, why didn’t they use those lips to design a better radio commercial?
While waiting for Don Anthony’s Morning Show Boot Camp to begin in Atlanta, my hero in radio Andrew Ashwood leaned over and asked me, “I need to know right now; are you a Broadcaster, a radio performer or a DJ?”
Without hesitation, “Broadcaster…”
“Then get used to the changes that’ll consume this industry like cancer. The only thing I need from you is to guarantee that you’ll never stop learning then teaching it. The moment you hang up the phone…you’re done. The next Broadcaster in line will kick you’re a** off the path and within a second you’ll be known as used to be.”
Seth Godin says, “The good old days are yet to happen and the guys that ran everything up until then will be gone.”
Let’s put it this way; during the Mood Ring craze of the 1980’s… a lot of people made millions off something so simple. Do any of the nickels dimes and quarters earned from a gimmick idea sit in bank accounts some thirty years later?
Take the idea from your sleepless nights and burn it into the channels of American culture.
Ideas are gimmicks! Buy into it or someone’s gonna beat you to it.
Ryan Seacrest is all over I Heart Radio. I’ll never be Ryan but no day passes that an intern/future Broadcaster isn’t sitting with me and it’s he or she that could one day replace Mr. America.
I want nothing but to watch the journey. In a society driven by billion dollar deals; footsteps toward painted horizons is priceless in a world of dreams.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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