After attending the RadioInk conference this week, I did an informal survey of "take aways" from the attendees. Most had great things to say about the key note from Nolan Bushnell - founder … more

There were a number of great revenue ideas at the 2011 SNA/Blinder Revenue Summit, which we will be posting on this site in the next few weeks. Here are some general themes we saw at the conference: 1. Large scale cultural transformation in local media is underway - and working - in a number of organizations Several executives we've already written about here - like Deseret Media and Source Media - were under the microscope at the conference. But the good news is that there are more companies showing some tranformational backbone in the space: Gatehouse's President and COO, Kirk Davis, was especially inspiring in how he is driving recruitment into the company. The Oklahoman also has entered the group of "intentional" leadership, and a newspaper in Kingsport, Louisiana, walked us through its separate digital division that engages in the agency space. The audience was equally engaged from Dow Jones, to Black Press. SNA's Nancy Lane pointed out that in spite of Deseret's CEO's message to separate or perish, the "legacy group" (it's no longer politically correct to say "legacy" at Deseret) is fully integrated, in addition to the digital only division, to say nothing of the brilliant and JOA-run real estate brokerage promoted on their site. 2. Real transformation addresses products, training, recruitment, pricing and compensation - then accountability The days of living with inhouse naysayers is coming to an end at a number of companies. But the chicken/egg situation also means that key executive serious about transformation are aggressively addressing these other issues - product, compensation, training and organization - first. As Kirk Davis of Gatehouse Media put it, you can ask sales people to "take the hill" without a game plan and ammunition. But it's not fair. And it won't get the traction you need. more