Imagine

I wonder if you can…

I first made you aware of Jonah Lehrer‘s new book, IMAGINE: HOW CREATIVITY WORKS in a post on January 23 of this year:  Can Creativity Be Taught?

Why am I bringing him up again?

First, because I sure wish I could have heard this interview on at least one commercial radio station in America.

I don’t expect to hear it on Z100 or KODA or even KFI, but why do we suppose listeners to KINK FM‘s Morning Show, or to KIRO in Seattle, KGO in San Fran, or even KBCO in Denver would not be fascinated by this information?

The last time I checked, public radio in those cities is very highly ranked — thriving, in fact — and often better funded and staffed than their commercial brethren.

Why do we automatically assume that the only “serious” topic we can discuss on commercial radio is politics, and rancorous, contentios politics at that?

Why do we assume that intelligent, curious, informed minds only congregrate around NPR? At this point, they have to because we, in commercial radio, aren’t even trying to speak to them.

It’s a bit like conceding any music listeners unwilling to sit through at least 7 commercials at a time to Pandora.

But, back to my rant…

I keep hoping that somewhere in the uppermost ranks of commercial radio executives and owners sits one person courageous enough to actually read the book and implement its findings.

Scientists have determined that people in a relaxed state and a good mood are far more likely to develop innovative or creative thoughts. And companies are now taking advantage of this fact.”

When you look at where insights come from, they come from where we least expect them. They only arrive after we stop looking at them. If you’re an engineer working on a problem and you’re stumped by your technical problem, chugging caffeine at your desk and chaining yourself to your computer, you’re going to be really frustrated. You’re going to waste lots of time. You may look productive, but you’re actually wasting time. Instead, at that moment, you should go for a walk. You should play some ping-pong. You should find a way to relax.

Honest show of hands now…

Do you know even one person working inside any radio station in America in a relaxed state and a good mood?

Notice I qualified that by the words ‘working,’ and ‘inside’ because I think there may be some owners on safari in Africa or flying on their Gulfstream personal jets, or guys at Bain Capital who are comparatively relaxed and certainly in better moods than the guys actually doing the work inside the radio station buildings.

It’s kind of hard to go for a walk or play ping-pong when you have to schedule music logs for 3 stations every day, each of which is a different format, along with your air shift. or do the creative imaging and commercial production for 7 stations, or talk to sales people about added value crap while you’re doing an air shift and — oh, yeah — programming the freaking radio station.

Is my head bloody yet, because it sure is hurting.

headbanging

Maybe I’ll grab my Nano, put on Colorado Public Radio, and go walk for an hour…