Durant's

Excellent steakhouse in Phoenix -- red velvet and Rat Pack with a great wine list.

Durant's

Getting items back on to your Kindle

AKA: "Getting purchased items onto another Kindle."

Part of the attraction of the Kindle, outside of other things I've posted about it, is the ability to share purchased books with up to 6 other devices. This isn't entirely perfect yet as the devices all have to be linked to the same purchase account (i.e., someone with a Kindle on my account can place orders using my credit card), but it's still pretty cool if that's not a concern for you.

Perhaps I missed it or just didn't look in the right place for it, but I couldn't figure out how to get access purchased content that was deleted and/or purchased content I wanted to put on another device from the Kindle -- that's because you can't. What you have to do is access yourmedialibrary on Amazon; this is where all of your digital purchases (e-books, music, movies, etc.) is stored. As it relates to the Kindle, from the yourmedialibrary dashboard, you can choose to resend a book to your Kindle via WhisperNet, send a purchased book to another Kindle on your account via WhisperNet, or download the e-book to load it via the USB cable (this must be the solution for purchasing books while traveling outside of the WhisperNet coverage area).

Kindle

Free video-based knowledge featuring Seth Godin & Tom Peters

The delicate balance of leadership
Social networking for small business
No cares about you
The importance of decency

Less than 10 minutes out of your life -- well worth it.

P&L killed the radio tribe

Radio stations used to have tribes; DJs on radio stations definitely used to lead their own tribes Listeners used to listen to radio to find new bands, to interact with artists, and because the DJs lead them. DJs used to be local and talked about local issues and people showed up at remote broadcasts to see them and interact with them, sometimes in acting out insane stunts. It wasn't unremarkable to see people driving around with stickers of their favorite radio station plastered on their bumpers because it was cool to announce that you were part of the tribe.

Once the consolidation of radio stations took place and playlists were programmed nationally and it was cheaper and easier to syndicate national DJs, the radio stations lost their tribes. Initially people continued to listen to the radio stations and the advertising revenue stayed flat or rose with yearly rate increases, so the radio stations had a good model: less costs and the same or more advertising revenue. Then the listeners decided not to listen any more because, after all, the same 12 songs every hour with some DJ based 10 states away didn't really do anything for them; listeners could load the same 12 songs on their iPods for $12 (or steal them). Now not having tribes is killing the advertising revenue for many stations around the country tribes=listeners, so kill the tribe, kill the listener pool, kill the advertising revenue.

The death of the radio tribes has left a pretty enormous vacuum that has not been adequately filled. I would hazard to say that if some stations exited their cranial-rectal inversion and turned the clock back, they could probably resurrect their tribes -- the former listeners still want someone to lead them. Certain stations prove this point overwhelmingly with KROQ in Los Angeles being a great example. In some cases, listeners have turned to satellite radio or internet radio (go try Pandora to find some new music), but that's content without a leader. In other cases listeners are connecting directly with bands, subscribing to the band and allowing the band to fill the role of leader and that's the opportunity.

It's never been easier for bands to connect to their listeners and it's never been easier for people to build platforms to make this happen. Take Hot Spot Radio Network as an example. Instead of providing DJs, they simply play a bunch of music that you've never heard and give you a way to interact directly with the band. The bands get commercial-free airplay, the get a distribution platform for their music (if you like what you hear broadcast, you can buy it), and they get a social network backbone to interact with their fans. Essentially a service like Hot Spot Radio makes it easy for the bands to lead the tribe; the tribe that Hot Spot leads is content and band access driven. Oh, wait, isn't that a big part of the leadership that the DJs used to provide? New content and access to the artists?

Again, it's never been easier to act the role of a DJ -- if you're an artist you can set up the ability to connect your tribe worldwide at almost no cost. You can get distribution at a worldwide scale at almost no cost. You can buy a computer and produce your music on it for about the same price as a couple of hours of studio time. You can achieve worldwide song distribution in seconds. You can shoot a live performance and post it on YouTube and let the whole world see you live. But you have to decide, can you lead your tribe? They want you to.

Picture from seychelles88

Review | Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

FULL DISCLOSURE: An advance copy of this book was provided to me by the author.

Those of you that read my blog know that I am a fan of Seth Godin and his newest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us does not disappoint. As with his last book, Tribes is short and to the point -- I easily completed it in a 2 hour workout session at the gym the first time that I read through it. Unlike some of his other books, Tribes is a little bit non-linear, but based on the main concepts of Tribes and leadership, the style works very well.

The underlying concept of the book is that there are many kinds of what Godin refers to as "tribes" -- they exist around specific interests, exist inside and outside of organizations, and that they need leaders. Further, Godin explains how the flattening of the world through the internet and easily accessible social applications provide powerful tools for leading a tribe.

There are some powerful concepts in this book in relation to leadership. Many of you have probably heard Peter Drucker's quote: "Management is about doing things right. Leadership is about doing the right things." Godin provides a more updated version: "Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Managers manage a process they've seen before, and they react to the outside world, striving to make that process as fast and as cheap as possible. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in." Kind of a much longer version, so try these from Godin:

• "Leaders have followers. Managers have employees."
• "Managers make widgets. Leaders make change."

Throughout the book there are powerful concepts regarding change, elements of leadership, and how to break out of the routine of being sheep ("sheepwalking" as Godin calls it). I frequently use the classic term of people having risen to their own level of incompetence -- Godin updates it with this: " '. . . in every organization everyone rises to the level at which they become paralyzed with fear,' " and continues with saying, "The essence of leadership is being aware of your fear."

Tribes does not disappoint and is well worth the read. The book will be released on October 16, 20008.

Link -- Seth Godin

What's Seth's free prize this time?

If you are like me and pre-purchased Seth Godin's new book, you may have taken the time to follow the instructions and become a member of Triiibes (if you haven't done it yet, don't bother as Triiibes goes public soon and the offer was only good for a limited time). And, if you are like me and completed your Triiibes registration, you may have received an e-mail asking for your home address so that Seth could send you a small gift.

I received my gift yesterday and it turned out to be a pre-release copy of Seth's new book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Pretty cool. What Seth asks is that in the next couple of weeks when the pre-ordered copy arrives that I give it to someone to read to spread the word. Brilliant.

I'll actually be giving both of my copies away and also purchasing the Kindle edition, so you never know, you might be receiving a copy of Tribes from me to read and share. Believe me when I say, with what I've read so far, once you read it, you're going to want to own your own copy.

PS -- you'll know if you get the pre-production version from me if it has dog-ears all over the pages.

Invest $0.99 for landscape e-mail on your iPhone

Yup, it just works -- enough said.

Link (straight to the Apple Store to buy TouchType)