You can learn a lot about a leader from the dreams he has.

I’ve had bosses who had recurring nightmares featuring a common villain: the bean counter. Even in times of unexpectedly large profits, they still woke up in a sweat convinced we needed to lay off someone.

I’ve had other bosses who seemed to dream about our products or company and how they could be bigger and better. They were obsessed with growing and/or improving the organization.

I’ve also worked for people who weren’t obsessed with cutting or building. Rather, they seemed to dream of being a firefighter. They sat in their offices everyday waiting for the call to come in and the bell to ring. They were caught up in the thrill of sliding down the pole and dousing whatever caught on fire today.  These bosses always complained about spending all their time putting out fires. Yet, that’s what they always chose to spend their time doing.

I’m convinced that every boss can be put into one of these three groups: the Cutters, the Creators, and the Maintainers.

No one wants to be a Cutter or Maintainer.  And, while every boss is occasionally forced by economics to trim here or there, I’m getting at something larger.  Each leader of every organization has a general persona that they carry with them regardless of economic or organizational conditions.  Day in and day out, year in and year out, they are either a Cutter, a Creator, or a Maintainer.

Those who are Cutters and Maintainers almost always have no idea that they are indeed such.

They view themselves as responsible stewards of their own company, or someone else’s corporation or organization . When people complain about unhealthy morale or tough working conditions, Cutters and Maintainers roll their eyes and deem the individual a complainer. They blame the sour workplace conditions on the economy or some overly demanding corporate executive they have to answer to.

The reality is that even when the economy is booming or that particular corporate executive no longer oversees this region, the Cutter will still be a Cutter. He doesn’t know how to quit.

The same is true for the Maintainer. He mistakenly thinks the company is healthy because he’s busy. Unfortunately, his business or organization never grows because his eyes are so firmly focused on his feet.

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to work for Creators cherish the experience.

Creators are the heroes of organizational leadership. You’ll find some of their names in bookstores. They usually don’t write books. Others do. About them.

Anyone great who comes to your mind in government, business, or religious history was more than likely a creator.

Creators are master delegators. They find good foot soldiers willing to march through the weeds while they climb the guard tower.

Creators don’t obsess over the trivial. They can’t tell you what time someone came to work today. But, they’re well aware of the exciting project that person is working on.

Creators have eyes that search spreadsheets for opportunities while Cutters and Maintainers hunt for the elusive, excessive expense.

Creators, Cutters, and Maintainers all say they hate meetings. Creators are the only ones who rarely schedule them.

Creators listen. They’re hoping they’ll catch you saying something that sparks the next great idea.

Creators see an employee as an investment. Cutters see them as an expense.

Creators make people feel part of something bigger than themselves.

Creators are strong-willed. They have to be to survive the second guessing of others.

Creators have a vision. And share it with everyone. With enthusiasm.

Creators demand more from you than you think you’re capable of producing. They ask you to do new and difficult things.  Not because they fired your coworker, but because they launched a new initiative.

Creators reward those who go outside the lines. Maintainers fire them.

Creators expect others to put out 90% of the fires.  Unlike Maintainers, they’re not attracted to smoke.

Creators get concerned when they see troubling trends. Cutters and Maintainers are always troubled.

Creators have little patience. They value being first in.

Creators take risk. They do more than talk about innovating. They do it.

Creators realize value comes from implementing good ideas not from looking busy.

Creators ask questions.

Creators hate email. And other distractions.

Creators like to escape the noise so they can think. Cutters and Maintainers love noise, and often are responsible for making it.

Creators live in the future. And, can describe it.

Creators build bridges, while Cutters and Maintainers widen the moat.

Creators leave legacies. Cutters and Maintainers just… leave.

A few weeks ago I went on a horseback adventure through one of the most remote  areas of this country.

I set out on a journey to the Supai Village deep within the Grand Canyon.

The isolated village is home to some of the most dramatic waterfalls in the world.

I traveled with a group of teenagers that I volunteer with.  We packed five days worth of supplies in our backpacks and paid an Indian guide to lead us on horseback to our destination.

The trip features a 2,300 foot change in elevation as you scale the impressive wall of the Grand Canyon and make your way across the rugged canyon floor.  When you arrive at your destination you’re greeted by a pounding 200 foot waterfall that supplies water to a crystal clear river.  The river winds through the bottom of the Grand Canyon and features miles of  smaller waterfalls.

The scenery is breathtaking with some of the biggest rewards saved for those who endure the most pain to find them.

I’ve been to this area before.  Once.  A few years ago.  This time, I wanted to discover more.  To see it all.

That meant I would have to hike further from our base camp than I had before and be willing to make my way across more rugged terrain.

The journey from camp took us through more than a mile of claustrophobic wild grape vines that towered above our heads and hid whatever lived beneath.

The jungle of vines vanished as the steep canyon narrowed forcing us to wade through the water.  The river led to a wall of rock where we had to rely on rope and climb upward to continue on our way.

The upper pathway eventually ended forcing us to find a way back down to the refreshing water below.  We discovered there was only one way down.  And, that was to Jump.

I am not a cliff jumper.

I enjoy daily life too much.

But, this journey provided me with a unique situation.  I could not see all I had come here to experience if I was not willing to overcome the anxiety of The Jump.  The months of planning, preparation, and the pain and sweat of getting this far down the path to our destination all led to these cliffs.

The options were to end the trip there or walk up to the edge, forget the dangers, and jump.

In that moment I learned several things.

I learned there’s value in having (crazy) people with you who are willing to jump even when the waters below have not been tested to make sure they’re safe.

I also learned that even when the water has been proven to be deep and wide enough it still takes everything you have to walk to the edge and throw your body over.

Standing on the edge and staring down doesn’t make it easier.  In fact, the longer you postpone any action and debate what you’re going to do the harder it becomes.

Fear can be paralyzing.

In that moment, I decided I had come too far to end the journey at this spot.  There was more I wanted to see and experience.  And, so, I walked up to the edge, briefly looked down, and JUMPED.

The payoff was enormous.

The sights and experiences of the next few hours were remarkable.  I saw a part of the Grand Canyon very few people have ever experienced.  I will long remember the sound and the strength of the powerful river, the view of the towering canyon walls, and the rush of trying to find a way to push forward to see and experience more.

Those cliffs and that journey have been on my mind quite a bit in recent weeks.

As I was reflecting on this experience, I came across a statement from Steve Jobs of Apple.  It’s a comment he made during his commencement speech at Stanford after he began his battle with cancer several years ago.

He said, “Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big decisions in life.”

In other words:  Jump!

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said some very interesting things on stage this week at the D9 tech conference.

He made two statements that are generating a lot of headlines. First, he accepted responsibility as the former CEO of Google for “screwing up” in the world of social media. He blamed “being busy” on his lack of innovation in the social space while Mark Zuckerberg built the Facebook empire.

The second statement Schmidt made that’s being discussed widely is his classification of a “gang of four” tech companies that he sees as ruling today. They are Google (of course), Facebook, Amazon, and Apple.

Both of those statements are worth discussing. But, I want to zero in on something else he said that’s not generating much attention.

The Money Quote

It was when Schmidt was talking about Facebook in a jealous sort of way. He identified Facebook’s key advantage over Google right now as “[Facebook] knows who you are.”

Think about that.

We take that for granted and don’t give it much thought.  A few years ago the only site on the internet that knew you was Amazon or some other retail site that you frequented. And, all they really knew about you was your purchase history with them, your address, and your credit card number.

Maybe a few discussion websites or news sites you registered at knew your name and had a photo you uploaded. But, they didn’t really KNOW YOU.

Then, came Facebook.

Facebook Knows You

Facebook knows a TON about you. It knows where you live, your age, your friends, what brands you like, your relatives, who you are the most interested in, where you vacationed, what industry you’re in, what company you work for, what school you went to, and increasingly it knows where you eat, work out, shop, etc.

Some of you read that last paragraph and felt a pit in your stomach. You’re about ready to delete your Facebook profile picture in fear someone will see you at the grocery store and want to kidnap your child.

For those of us who aren’t privacy paranoids this doesn’t concern us.

Schmidt went on to say at D9 that if Google knew as much about you as Facebook does then it could deliver a whole different level of search results for you.

And, that my friends, is only a matter of time.

Search and Social Merging

That is the main reason Larry Page kicked Schmidt out of the CEO’s office and retook control of it. Google will not survive if it doesn’t soon learn who you are. The company’s future depends on it.

Today I helped a friend purchase a new digital camcorder. He had no idea what he should buy. Imagine if he could have Googled “digital camcorder” and saw the reviews his Facebook friends had written. You don’t think that would have influenced his purchasing decision?

I spent the last 15 years in the world of traditional media where advertisers pay huge amounts of money to send their message to faceless people.  In traditional media we could have never imagined going to our clients with all the kinds of information about our audience that Facebook knows about theirs.

I spend a lot of time these days talking to clients about the coming merge of search and social.  I preach how critical it is for companies to build strong reputations in both search and social because of the competitive advantage it will give them when these two industries collide. Success in marketing a brand will soon depend on how well a company has grasped this coming shift and what they’ve done to prepare for it.

Eric Schmidt’s comments this week at D9 made me realize that shift is likely coming sooner than I had thought.

I can’t let today pass without sharing a few thoughts about the huge news story of Osama Bin Laden’s death.

I’ve gotten a bunch of emails and direct messages today from those you who read this blog making sure that I saw the charts of the historic number of tweets sent out when the Osama story broke. Others wanted to make sure I had heard about the guy near Osama’s compound who unwittingly live-tweeted the U.S. raid.

This is the first major news story to break since I ended my 16+ years in the traditional news media industry. It was interesting to be strictly a consumer of information this time around.

I can’t stop thinking on this day after about how limiting some of the existing traditional media platforms are for those who are looking for information.

Obama Wants to Speak

I received a notification on my iPhone from the Huffington Post at roughly 10:15 eastern Sunday. It said President Obama was going to make an unexpected address to the nation. I immediately went to Twitter looking for information. There was absolutely no chatter about this development at that moment.

So, I turned on the broadcast television channels. Reality food shows and crime dramas were all I got. So, to CNN. A live phone interview with Donald Trump about the birth certificate. Yawn. To Fox News next. Geraldo, to his credit, was all over the President’s surprise speech. He was completely misguided in his speculation of the topic but at least he was aware something was up.

Now, back to Twitter.

And, I immediately saw Keith Urbahn’s comments retweeted by a news producer I follow in DC.

Suddenly, the chatter began increasing. Details began to come in.

I began texting friends that Osama Bin Laden was likely dead. They texted back, “what TV channel are you seeing this on?” The answer: none.

Next, to the New York Times website. Nothing.

It became clear to me quickly that Twitter was my best tool to follow this story. Chuck Todd wasn’t yet in front of the cameras in the White House Briefing Room but he was talking on Twitter.

Jake Tapper’s employer, ABC, hadn’t yet decided to break into regular programming, but he was busy tweeting to his followers what he was learning.

And, so it went Sunday night.

The Problem Is the Platform

These reporters were absolutely critical to coverage of this historic story. Their hard work developing sources paid off as they were able to break news throughout the evening.

The glaring problem was the platform.

It was incredibly slow in getting me access to them.

Jake Tapper isn’t paid based on what he tweets. I doubt Jill Jackson has ever had a performance review where her boss at CBS talked about her social media skills.

And, yet, that is increasingly how we, the audience, are best able to get value from these talented journalists.

I don’t remember the last time I watched any broadcast that Jack Tapper files video reports for. Yet, I consume his reporting constantly.

Sure, only a minuscule part of the overall news-consuming audience has a Twitter account. I’m certain Twitter will never be mainstream, at least in its current form.

I’m not concerned about the site as much as I am the technology. The speed at which Twitter allows information to flow and the direct line it opens up between speaker and audience is profound.

Information Can’t Be Slowed Down

Those of us on Twitter last night were light years ahead of people stuck watching a reality cooking show. They had no idea something major had happened in the world. Imagine if the news Obama was going to announce had something to do with our immediate safety. Would that extra 30-45 minutes have mattered then?

Information can not be held back by artificial dams.

I’m convinced the companies that will win tomorrow are the ones that are building a culture that places a high value on platforms that provide the most direct communication.

Right now, those tools reside in the space we currently call social media.

If I were at a news organization I would spend significant time evaluating how well my team (the entire team) used social media tools to inform and engage audiences on the Osama story.

And, if I were the head of a company seeking new customers and/or trying to retain existing customers I would be investing significantly in building out communication and engagement channels on social platforms.

It’s the future.

That was made clear again, Sunday night.

When I was in my early 20s and new to management our market vp invited me to start attending her weekly department head management meetings.

I was a low level manager. The type that typically wasn’t invited to these gatherings.

I’ll never forget sitting around that boardroom table. I was the youngest, by far, in the room. The environment was foreign to me. And, I was completely intimidated.

So intimated that I never spoke.

Week after week I said nothing.

Nada.

Finally, the vp summoned me to her office.

She made it clear she had taken a risk inviting me to these meetings and was beginning to wonder if it was a wise move on her part. In a firm, but caring, way she asked if I understood who controlled my growth opportunities at the company.

I answered “my boss.”

She asked me what positions he could promote me to. I listed a couple. Then, she asked what positions she could promote me to. I gave a much longer list.

In that moment my vision changed.

LIVING IN A SMALL BUBBLE

I instantly realized I was living in too small a bubble. The only person on my radar was my boss. He knew me as someone who was full of ideas and opinions about the direction of the company and our industry. He saw great value in me.

But, when placed on a bigger stage I had failed to impress a broader group that included people in higher positions. I hadn’t grasped the opportunity.  The opportunity of access to those who could have a significant impact on my future career growth.

The world has dramatically changed since that day I first walked into that boardroom.

The truth is boardrooms no longer have doors on them. And, now no one has to wait for an invitation to sit around the table in order to have access to those who could impact their future.

Social media changed all that.

THEY’RE LURKING AROUND YOU

You see, now, those who sit in corner offices spend time each week browsing the internet. Many of them are on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. They’re lurking all around you as you make your way across the web.  You don’t recognize them because their usernames and profile pictures look like all the rest.

Each time you contribute to the conversation happening online you increase the likelihood they’ll discover you. See something you said. Click on a link to something you wrote.

The Social Web dramatically improves the opportunities available to those who have something valuable to offer.

But, too many of us are like me in that boardroom.

We’re not saying anything. Or, anything of value. We see social media as a place to check in at a gas station, post a line from a song we’re listening to, or upload a not-so-flattering picture from the party last night.

There’s nothing wrong with all of that, as long as it doesn’t completely define our online presence.  If checking in and posting party photos are all we’re doing online than we’re no different than me at that boardroom table.  We’re in a room full of people.  And, we’re saying nothing.

TAKE YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE

Many of us are living in too small a bubble. We spend our time trying to impress our immediate boss and ignoring the fact we now have access to executives’ computer screens and investors’ smartphones.

Social media gives you a chair at the boardroom table.

At every boardroom table.

So, take your seat.

And, PLEASE, say something.

Anything.

Of value.

Today, I want to spotlight a company that is doing a bang up job building a community on Facebook.

Too often, companies forget that the purpose of social media is to build a community. Sell your product or talk about your wonderful company on YOUR website. But, use Facebook and Twitter to talk about your customers, or what your customers are interested in.

In today’s video I show you how the relatively small clothing company Life is Good has managed to assemble more than 855,000 fans on their Facebook fan page.

Click here to see the video on YouTube.

As you’ll see in the video, there are three things they’re doing remarkably well on Facebook:

• Posting content that their fans are interested in (in this case it’s motivational or inspirational sayings)
• Posting a ton of pictures and videos from behind the scenes that make the brand become real and approachable (NO glamour shots!)
• Posting stories written by their customers

As I show you in the video, there’s one gaping hole in Life is Good’s Facebook strategy, though:

• Listening and responding to customers’ comments and questions

You’ll notice that Life is Good is NOT using Facebook to sell their product.  They don’t talk about themselves.  Instead, they make their social media presence about the members of the community they’re building.

Watch the video here, or see the HD version on YouTube.

Life is Good’s Facebook strategy is a tremendous example of how Facebook can be used to build a community of followers.  Remember, Facebook is about engagement, not selling.

Too many companies are using the social site to talk about themselves and then wondering why they’re not gaining more followers.

The secret is Engagement.

The popular restaurant chain, Olive Garden, is in the middle of a firestorm of bad publicity.

You’ve likely heard the story of the 2-year-old boy that they served alcohol to instead of orange juice.  But, there’s another story circulating in social media that is extremely damaging to Olive Garden.

In today’s video blog post, I walk you through the firestorm surrounding Olive Garden and how they are, or better said, are NOT using social media to respond to the bad press.

Watch the video to see what Olive Garden can teach us about how not to handle social media.

As I said in the video, it’s critical that social media is a major part of every company’s culture. When it is then you’ll be fully prepared to respond when a firestorm hits your company.

And, you’ll have built a following of fans and friends on social media sites who you can quickly mobilize to defend your reputation.

The time will come when you’ll need to use social tools for defensive purposes. The key is implementing your social media strategy now so you’ll be ready.

UPDATE: Story about alleged Tuscan cooking school fraud now going mainstream. Huffington Post has picked it up since I made the video.

I vividly remember the first time I walked into a TV news studio.

It was 1988. At KMOL-TV in San Antonio.  The NBC affiliate.

A future mentor of mine, Art Rascon, invited me to come take a look at where he worked.  I was 15 years old and already obsessed with the news business.  So, on a Saturday I climbed in Art’s car and we headed down to a building just a few blocks from the Alamo.

It was my first time inside a newsroom.  And, it was love at first sight.

The noise of the wire printers.  The commotion of police scanners.  The photographers waiting to find out where they would go next to capture something the audience needed to see tonight.

I decided then and there that I wanted to be a TV news anchor.  To sit at that desk, under those lights, and look into that camera would be the thrill of a lifetime, I thought.

NO ONE WANTS THE JOB

So, why, 20 years later does no one want the job?

I guess we need to examine the model.

It begins to look quite strange in today’s connected world when you step back and contemplate it for a minute.

Put a person in a closed room, fire up the lights, have them sit alone (or maybe with a member of the opposite sex next to them), and then in a deeeeeep voice they announce to you what happened today.

The person can have no opinions.  They can not reveal any more than a sliver of their personality.  And, they must look perfect and perform flawlessly.  Every element of their humanity is stripped from them.

It’s hard to remember that viewers actually used to prefer this approach.  Now, it seems so archaic.  I look back at the time I sat down with Dan Rather for a one-on-one interview in a small room in downtown Salt Lake City as if it was part of some event from way back in history.  And, in a way it was.  It wasn’t all that many years ago.  But, it was a different era.

EVERYTHING STARTS WITH OPRAH

The death of the TV news anchor started with Oprah. She showed that people on TV could talk about news and issues without being stiff and robotic.  She introduced a new format to TV called Real and Raw.  Her success paved the way for people like Jon Stewart, who has done more damage to the traditional TV news model that almost anyone.

And, as Oprah and Stewart grew in popularity so too did the Internet.  Now, people could read news from anywhere in the world at anytime they wanted to.  News outlets, after much debate and hesitation, started publishing now instead of later.

Then, came blogs. People with insight and expertise started to share tidbits of news surrounded by opinion and personality.  While TV news types thumbed their noses at bloggers, audiences embraced the new casual platform.

And, then came social. The significance of this development is not understood in most newsrooms or news management offices.  The Social Web is obviously still in its infancy.  But, there’s a reason they call it The Social Revolution.

Sharing the news is what anchors used to do.  Now, the audience has become the sharers.  Tweets and like buttons effectively blew out some of the light bulbs in the ceiling above the anchor desk.  The studio walls are crumbling.

But, social won’t be the fatal blow to the position of traditional news anchor.

Internet TV will be.

STEVE JOBS’ LAST PROJECT?

Apple managed to find a way to deliver the Internet on a phone and then on a flat, small, mobile touchscreen.

And, now they, and Google, are working around the clock to do the same to the TV.  Their first attempts left much to be desired.  But, anyone who doubts their resolve hasn’t read what they’ve been saying.

Steve Jobs blames old media’s big money for slowing innovation, “the television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business model that gives everyone a set-top box, and that pretty much undermines innovation in the sector.”

But then reveals he’s put quite a bit of thought into where this is all going, “the only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it.”

And, one Wall Street analyst who has special access to Jobs dropped this bombshell this week, “we would find it easy to believe that Steve Jobs’ final hurrah before turning the reins over would be to revolutionize video much in the same way Apple has transformed the mobile, computing, and music world.” The man behind that quote says Apple’s stock is about to skyrocket to $450 a share because of a “new device” in the family room.

DON’T BET AGAINST GOOGLE

Not to be outdone, Google announced in recent days that some of its smartest engineers are now at work building live TV channels on the site that many people forget it owns: YouTube.

In a day not far from now, your TV screen will look like your smartphone screen with dozens of apps on it.  And, those 300 channels you have now will become 125,000 channels because anyone will be able to create one.

And, then, those who haven’t already discovered that the current model of a broadcast TV network is dead will abruptly come to that realization.

Obviously, there will be news outlets distributing news on the coming TV platform.  But, the way it is packaged, its distribution schedule, and the model for how the person on the screen interacts with the audience will be completely different.

BROKAW WAS MY FAVORITE

Some will read this post and long for yesteryear.  To them the way it used to be is always preferred.  I’ll admit I’m a bit nostalgic when thinking about the bigger-than-life anchor model that gave us Murrow, Cronkite, and my favorite, Brokaw.  But in the information age there is little time for reflection.

That won’t stop me, though, from taking a moment sometime in the not-too-distant future to tell my young kids the story of how news used to be delivered.

I’ll tell them about the bright lights, the scanners, the wire printers, and the legends of the Era of News Anchors.  And, I’ll tell them about that Saturday I spent at KMOL-TV.

Actually, I probably won’t tell this story to my kids.

I’ll post it on their Facebook Wall.

That way… I know they’ll see it.

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A New York Times article about Glenn Beck’s future plans is creating quite the stir in media circles.

The possibility that Glenn Beck might leave Fox News Channel is old news.  The new bombshell is that Beck is considering starting his own television channel.

This is one of those moments when you stop.  And consider how the media landscape is changing.  In dramatic and historic ways.

If you work at a media company you’re going to be left behind if you don’t pay serious attention and fully grasp the implications of this monumental shift.

Brian Stelter, of the New York Times, puts the Beck/Fox News story in proper context:

Were Mr. Beck to set off on his own, it would be a landmark moment for the media industry, reflecting a shift in the balance of power between media institutions and the personal brands of people they employ.

Landmark moment.  Yup.  And, I’d argue this is a landmark moment in media regardless of what Beck does.  Because this is much bigger than just Beck.  He’s not the first in his position.  And, he’s certainly not going to be the last.

Glenn Beck Is Not the First

Oprah has already done it.  (And, don’t tell me you’re one of the fools who are paying attention to her early ratings.  Oprah will get it right.)

Conan O’Brien has done it.  So has Keith Olbermann.  Seth Godin too.

What they’ve done is taken control of their brand.  And, taken control away from the media or publishing company they previously worked for.  Some have left due to a battle between them and their bosses.  And, what were those battles about?  This shift in power.

It is pure insanity that Glenn Beck has to worry about what Fox News Channel thinks of his show.  Do I think he’s a little too “the end is near, hide in your bunker” right now?  Are you kidding?  Of course.  But, who cares?  The fact is he has millions of followers.  They listen to him on the radio.  They watch him on TV.  They read his books.  They subscribe to his website.  They sell out 10,000 seat arenas to see him talk (for 8 hours!).

This is a man who has built a following.  And, about a year and a half ago he smartly began to assemble his followers on Twitter, Facebook, and his websites.  (And, if he’s leaving Fox he should dramatically intensify his efforts in this area.)

Beck realizes he is large enough to build a successful media brand on his own.  He can free himself from having to worry if he’s said something that his bosses at Fox News Channel don’t like.

Some will argue Beck won’t have as large a platform if he leaves Fox.  Maybe that’s true today.  But, it won’t be true soon.

The playing field is being leveled between legacy brands and startups.  What Arianna Huffington has done in the news business would not have been possible 10 years ago.  Tim Westergren could not have made a dent in the radio business if he was born 20 years earlier.  Who would have believed Leo Laporte if he told you he was going to build a 24/7 TV station out of a small house in California that would eventually attract major sponsors like Ford?

And, these people built their brands during the early days of the social web.  As sharing becomes easier it will continue to level the playing field.  Being attached to a heritage media brand will have little to no advantage.

Build Your Own Following, Now

This is something all media personalities should take note of.  Because, the universe is changing.  Media personalities do something that is becoming increasingly valuable in today’s digital world: create sought-after content.

That’s where the opportunity exists for traditional media personalities.

The smart ones are investing their own hard-earned money paying for personal website developers and designers to build them their own home on the Internet.  The smart ones are brainstorming ways to add value to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube.

The smart ones are using the platform traditional media currently offers them to convert thousands, and in some cases millions, of their listeners, viewers, or readers to their personal digital media outlets.  So, they can build a database of their followers that is owned by them.

The Game is Changing

Traditional media companies are fighting this trend.  They still hold enough of the power to win some of the battles in this space.  But, I can feel the tide turning.  We are at the tipping point.  And, as media companies cut salaries, or in the best case, keep salaries flat for their top name talent, they are surrendering the future of content to the media companies of tomorrow.

Creators of great content WILL get paid.

The big question right now is who will pay them.

I’m convinced traditional media has already largely lost this battle.  For two reasons.  First, despite their denials to this fact, they simply do not fully comprehend how much the world has changed.  And, second, their revenue is not growing fast enough for them to pay their talent what they are worth.

Technology increasingly allows personalities to speak directly to their followers without the company’s microphone, camera, or printing press. Media personalities can now easily move their audience when they embark on a new adventure.

The clock is ticking.  Money is already starting to flow toward the media companies of tomorrow.  The personalities who will be most attractive will be those with the largest and most engaged followers.  There is no time to waste.

Glenn Beck clearly understands this.  And, the article in the New York Times is clearly a move by him to test the waters and generate some phone calls from those who control the flow of money.

I’m confident his phone will be ringing.

And he’ll have a solid backup plan in case Fox News is one of those traditional media companies that doesn’t understand the tide is turning.