No Jazz Flutes

Ah, Syracuse. Depending on whether you're feeling charitable, Worcester, MA or Hanover, NH come to mind. I was there for a 36-hour trip this past weekend to have meetings and check out venues for a seminar we're doing there in April. It wasn't a bad time, but 36 hours was plenty. While there I got to listen to lots of suits talk shop about the intricacies of the FCC and communications law. A bit brain-numbing. On the upside, I got to sit in on a lecture by Pandora's founder Tim Westergren. He's a very cool former musician with a business model that will hopefully continue to make money and introduce people to new music as long as Soundexchange doesn't do them in. Since they need people to listen to all that music and categorize it in umpteen ways, they actually hire those poor, starving, non-touring, Berklee College of Music grads who had to take all that music theory! Drat. If I'd know that I would've stuck with ear training and contemporary harmony...that is, as long as it never involved listening to the jazz flute.

I tie my brain in knots regularly over FMC's finances: how to pay for things, how to justify them, how to pay just enough - not too much but not too little either - for what we need, and how to explain it all. Funny, I never thought about its innate alternate-universe-esque weirdness until I read this article in the Non-Profit Quarterly. If you work for a non-profit or are considering it, this article should be required reading.

Alas, non-profit accounting is not as amusing as Chad Vader (courtesy of the dude from Innova I met in Syracuse).

The Long Tail's Chris Anderson has a free preview on the Wired website from his new book called, in case you miss the point, "Free".

On the political front: Harold Feld considers how Clinton's constant style vs. substance charge is more about campaigning style and how Obama and Clinton are using the Internet differently. Can't finish this without asking why? Seems Nader can't properly answer that question either.

Well, at least I only got a few points in the Dork category...