TOTAL AUDIENCE CHARADE:  Nielsen continues to dribble out data from its Q2 Total Audience Study.  The latest research shows consumers’ time spent aligning into three primary buckets, as referenced in the graph below – TV (reds), AM/FM Radio (green), and Online (blue/web and oranges/in-app).  Nielsen makes this as confusing as possible by not including streaming audio in the Radio bucket and by slicing web and mobile time spent when they’re both really online.  If you correctly regroup the data you’ll see online at 2:50 in daily time spent, surpassing Radio’s 1:52.  Nielsen’s slight of hand is understandable since most of their revenue comes from TV and Radio – which means they’re getting paid to make the broadcasters look as good as possible.  Fair and balanced research, eh?  But those smoke and mirrors can’t undo the reality that consumers’ time spent with media is more fragmented than ever, and online is growing at the expense of traditional media.  http://rainnews.com/mobile-keeps-growing-in-nielsen-q2-total-audience-report/

STREAMING PLAYOLA:  Deezer is taking an novel approach to revenue generation by offering artists a pay-for-play.  Yes, charging artists.  So how does it work?  Deezer is partnering with an online music promoter called Feature.fm, which touts the ability to “guarantee your songs get played and heard on streaming radio stations to a targeted audience”.  Deezer is now one of those streamers who’s distributing Feature’s paid content.  I see two problems with this setup.  First, Feature’s business model stinks like the old Playola schemes did back in the early days of radio . . . sure I’ll play your music, just palm me a $20.  And second, the insertion of paid Feature music into Deezer’s algorithm for song selection means listeners will hear artists who have artificially prioritized themselves up on the platform.  So it won’t be the best music for individual listeners, just music which is paying the most to be heard.  http://www.insideradio.com/free/deezer-will-now-play-an-artist-s-music-for-a/article_0aa96666-8ac6-11e6-b842-43d7214a6613.html

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM?:  Warning . . . be prepared to have your mind blown on this last one.  The following infographic has been making the rounds on FB and LinkedIn, and I thought it was worth sharing.  It visualizes the top 10 Food & Beverage companies and all the brands each owns.  It’s pretty much every F&B item you could consume, all owned by a handful of parent companies.  The article below also ranks them by annual global revenue.  If you cover one of these parents/brands this is a useful sheet to keep handy.  I know the visual below is a bit of an eye chart – a larger version is available on the link.  (One note – you might be wondering where P&G is on this list.  OxFam created this infographic for food-based companies.  And since P&G is more of a non-food CPG they weren’t included.)  http://www.businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-food-industry-2016-9/#general-mills-3

Have a great Thursday guys!

HISPANIC MILLENNIAL FOCUS:  We already know the importance of the Hispanic audience from both listener and advertiser perspectives.  Traditional TV and Radio have owned this marketplace for years on the backs of endemic powerhouses like Univision and Telemundo.  As you can see in the attached Inside Radio article, broadcasters have recognized the value of the millennial Hispanic audience and are coming after it.  The article is a fairly detailed road map of what the other guys are doing (or are attempting to do), so it’s worth a read.  But it’s just as important to point out what the broadcasters can’t do.  Radio stations can only target Hispanic consumers when they’re listening to SL content.  They can’t serve in-language ads when the same listener turns on a non-SL station, because they don’t have registered users.  By contrast Pandora can identify Hispanic listeners based on their music consumption, accurately place them in a Spanish Preferred segment, and serve SL ads even when they’re listening to English content.  This allows marketers to leverage the power of this audience no matter what music they’re listeing to!  http://www.insideradio.com/free/culture-and-diverse-programming-keep-hispanic-millennials-tuned-in/article_9419627a-8936-11e6-9aca-0f20bb307552.html

STREAMING 101:  Quartz is featuring a comprehensive guide on everything you need to know about music streaming services available in the US.  The front half article is more of a rundown on the various streamers with their cost, scale, and points of differentiation.  The back half of the article gets a little deeper into the nuances (like Taylor Swift not being available on Spotify).  Nothing too shocking here, but a good refresher in case you need it.  http://qz.com/780926/the-complete-guide-to-getting-your-moneys-worth-out-of-music-streaming/

WHO WILL MAKE THE HOT LIST?:  And finally, a Pandora has been nominated in two categories for AdWeek’s annual Reader’s Choice Awards.  Please take a moment to click on the link below.  You’ll see the Mighty P listed for both Hottest Music App and Hottest Digital Brand of the Year.  Please vote early and often in both categories.  Not kidding – you can actually vote as many times as you want.  This year let’s take down iHeart, who usually has a bunch of interns in some windowless room clicking over and over!  http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/hot-list-what-are-2016s-top-digital-brands-apps-and-must-have-products-173834

Have a great Wednesday guys!

THE DIRT ON GE0-BASED TARGETING:  First up this morning is a very detailed summary on the state of geo-based digital ad targeting.  This article is sort of a grind, but worthwhile to get through.  It outlines the vast spider web of third party ad tech/mar tech companies who are accessing consumers’ lat/long data after they naively press that “agree to opt in”  button when installing a new app.  It’s fair to say consumers have no idea how many companies are getting their hands on this data.  Therefore it’s reasonable to assume we could get to the point of an opt out revolt once consumers realize they’re getting digitally groped by strangers.  It also underscores the importance of giving consumers something valuable in return for opting in.  Pandora has solved this by giving listeners real time updates on ticket availability for bands they prefer via Ticketfly, but very few other publishers can actually complete their end of the opt in deal.  Get ready for more updates as this geo-marketing frontier heats up.  http://adage.com/article/digital/mobile-location-trouble-opting/306121/

IT’S A STREAMING WORLD AND WE’RE JUST LIVING IN IT:  Over the past few months we’ve covered the US Record Label’s return to profitability due to the surge in streaming royalties.  Now a research firm called Strategy Analytics takes the growth one step further by forecasting streaming’s impact on global label royalties out to 2022.  The prediction is pretty shocking – ad supported royalties growing by 2.5x to $1.9B and paid subscription royalties growing by 3.5x to $9.5B.  While the methodology used to come up with these numbers isn’t totally clear, stats like smartphone proliferation and streaming service distribution in 2^nd and 3^rd world countries were factored in.  Even if these numbers are close to accurate, it’s safe to say we’ll be living in music streaming world within the next five years.   http://rainnews.com/streaming-pegged-to-dominate-global-mobile-music-market-by-2022/

A DATA MARRIAGE:  And finally, yesterday news broke about Salesforce’s acquisition of Krux. This is a pretty smart move for SF who needed a DMP like Krux to self-monetize the data it already possessed in its Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SMC). In fact, up to now SF has been selling its data to DMPs like Oracle and Adobe. Now they’ll be able to leverage the power of that data within their own ecosystem. As you probably know, Krux has a data partnership with Pandora. I wouldn’t expect this M&A to change anything about that arrangement. But we may see enhanced offerings from Krux once the SMC data is incorporated. http://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/salesforce-buy-krux-closing-ad-tech-gap-rival-marketing-clouds/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTm1ZM016Z3lZakptWkRVdyIsInQiOiJpdm03cmFmemVBZUVlXC9zaUxvSGFLRHNXOWJKWFB4S3pNYTlaOFJZSjNGeVdkV1RGRnd6YjVqVk9JcHB6SjNWaU4xU0IxcE8yWE1GazdnUGRwZFwvZFRWRjMxb0tyVitDck5paFZITXM3c2EwPSJ9

Have a great Tuesday guy!

FB VIDEO BACKLASH:  Last week I featured a story on Facebook’s overestimation of average time spent watching video ads on its platform due to a miscalculation in their ad metrics.  Well now comes the backlash.  By the end of last week there was a growing chorus of calls for independent third party measurement and auditing of FB’s ad platform.  I’ve included a pair of articles covering different perspectives on this.  The first AdWeek article details the position of the ANA, and the second AdExchanger article takes the viewpoint from various agencies.  In either case the demand is pretty clear.  FB, and similar “walled garden” publishers like Google, should allow third party measurement companies like MOAT, IAS, Comscore and Nielsen to look under the hood and make sure they’re delivering what they’ve sold to advertisers.  Because without independent measurement FB is effectively grading its own test.  Which is exactly how the initial video miscalculation was able to persist for two years without anyone noticing.  Also thought you might get a kick out of this cartoon which pretty much sums up marketers’ feeling about FB’s self-measurement. (1) http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ana-asks-facebook-open-its-platform-more-third-party-measurement-173821  (2) http://adexchanger.com/agencies/facebooks-video-measurement-snafu-rip-advertiser-trust/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpneE9EazRaamM1TkRWaiIsInQiOiJvcnBna0RpWlZlT2lVVDJ3OHZCNnF2ekt3bTJkTjJKNXVYZmN1MG9OenJqSUQ4RWx6VzY2MlYzQkMxSzk0OWhDVUZseVBhd3J2NElVbGttSEExVkVnWjdsYnRNK3FEU2p1dXBpbytGS2llOD0ifQ%3D%3D

IHEART’S CASUAL PLAN?:  Last week iHeart confirmed it’s preparing to launch a two-tiered on-demand service in January.  Now one of its executives is explaining iHeart’s plan for differentiation in the marketplace by appealing to “casual” listeners.  They are referring to the majority of US music listeners who aren’t used to paying for CDs, downloads, etc..  The thing that’s confusing about this strategy is how do you convince a person who doesn’t pay for music already to buy a subscription now?  And is iHeart forgetting about another streamer, whose logo is blue and has a P in it, which already provides lean back streaming to 80M/mo for free?  Seems like a really well thought out plan.  J  http://www.insideradio.com/free/iheart-wants-new-services-to-rate-with-casual-fans/article_b821d734-8935-11e6-9633-fffecae00901.html

NIELSEN DOUBLES DOWN ON PPM:  One of the chronic complaints TV and Radio broadcasters have about Nielsen is the relatively small number of PPMs used to determine ratings.  It’s a simple math issue – the smaller the sample is the less accurate the results.  To combat this Nielsen is announcing an initiative to significantly increase the number of PPMs in market.  This should be welcome news to broadcasters since they’re getting what they want, right?  Not so fast my friend!  (Yes, that was a Lee Corso reference.)  The other big problem with PPM is the people meters themselves.  They look like beepers and fit on a belt or purse strap.  And since wearing things like beepers on a belt went out of style around the same time as mom jeans, it’s hard to envision today’s fashion forward Millennials voluntarily wearing one of these babies.  Here’s an actual image from PPM sales collateral circa 1990s to help make my point.  Sigh . . .  http://www.insideradio.com/nielsen-may-be-ready-to-increase-radio-sample/article_a9512acc-86d1-11e6-8bd4-73454edf35f0.html

Have a great Monday guys!

TV DOOMSDAY:  First up today is a comprehensive look at the declining trend of traditional “set top” television viewership in the US.  We know video content is migrating to digital distribution channels like DVR, VOD and Connected TV.  We also know Nielsen is scrambling to catch their measurement system up by releasing its Television Total Audience Measurement product next April.  So just how bad is it getting for traditional TV?  Check out the Marketing Charts link below.  The article gets really technical, so I’ve pulled out the money graph.  It shows overall TV viewership decline by demo over the past five years.  Over that period Teen viewership has declined by 36% and 18-24 yos have declined by 39%.  Fair to say traditional TV has a youth problem?  Ouchy! http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/

THAT’S ONE HUGE THUMBPRINT:  Spotify has been in the news lately with some copycat stations based on listeners’ playlist curation.  While this makes for a nice headline it doesn’t necessarily equate to usage.  For mainstream adoption of personalized stations look no further than Pandora’s Thumbprint Radio success.  In less than a year since TR’s launch, listeners a have consumed 5.5 billion songs on their Thumbprint stations.  That’s enough music for every human on the Earth 13+ to listen to at least one Thumbprint song.  Now that’s a stat worth covering!  https://www.cnet.com/au/news/pandora-thumbprint-radio-breaks-5-5-billion-spins/

HOW EXTREME ARE YOU?:  Finally this week, I want to share an article which really resonates with me.  As many of you know, I’m a compulsive early bird.  Throughout my career I’ve gotten out of bed before the alarm clock goes off because I’m genuinely excited about the day ahead.  Whether it was beating the morning show guys into the radio station during my 20s, or writing this blog in the wee hours during my 40s, I’ve always used the hour or two before the world gets moving to help get ahead of the day.  Well it turns out I’m not alone!  Check out the early morning routine of these Navy SEALS turned leadership consultants.  They see the benefit of waking up early as more than just extra time to get things done.  It’s a way to build and maintain personal discipline and achieve what they call “Extreme Ownership” of one’s life.  Granted, doing burpees in your hotel room at 5:00a until you vomit might not be for everyone.  But pushing yourself just a little harder can benefit anyone.  Consider that the average American has 230 work days in a year.  If you wake up just 30 minutes earlier each day what could you do with the extra 115 hours per year?  That would be enough time for a hell of a lot of burpees! http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seals-why-waking-up-early-matters-2016-9

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

ANA LAYS DOWN THE LAW:  There were more fireworks at Ad Week in NY around the topic of agency fee transparency.  This time it was comments from Tony Pace, Chairman of the ANA.  His main point was to dismiss the 4As’ attempt to self-police it’s member agencies by imposing best practice guidelines.  Instead Mr. Pace asserted that agency transparency should be dealt with “on a marketer-to-agency basis versus having a global solution, because of the different perspectives in the membership of 4As”.  Translation – if you work at an agency expect to have your feet held to the fire on fee transparency across all the media services you provide to a client.  So get ready for more agency reviews, invoice audits and general tension in these relationships.  Can we just go back to three martini lunches with Don Draper already?!?  http://adage.com/article/special-report-advertising-week/ana-media-transparency-issues-solved-individually/306068/

DIGITAL AUDIO MOMENTUM:  AdAge and The Trade Desk are out with a very rosy forecast on the future of Digital Audio.  In yesterday’s coauthored release they predicted Digital Audio’s % of “media strategy” will double from 7.5% to 14.8% in just two years.  % of Media Strategy is a loose term based on how often Digital Audio will be included in companies’ marketing plans.  Right now the % of Digital Audio spend is still very nascent – just 1-1.5% of overall media, depending on who you ask.  But even a doubling of this small % would be an amazing growth trajectory for the entire sector.  The latter part of this article focuses on audio programmatic as the vehicle by which Digital Audio will grow.  Given that the Trade Desk (a prominent DSP) helped pen this study, you’ve gotta take this with a grain of salt.  Programmatic buying becoming more widespread for audio . . . yes.  Programmatic the key to all audio sales in the future . . . probably not so much.  http://rainnews.com/digital-audio-advertising-to-double-in-two-years-keyed-to-programmatic-survey/

IN-APP LEADER BOARD:  The following Business Insider article was written to highlight Snapchat’s ascension into the list of top In-App Mobile publishers.  The main takeaway is that the list is utterly dominated by the Big 2 – FB and Google.  And while many want to give Snapchat the 2016 shiny new toy award, it’s worth noting Pandora is still standing strong at #8 on the list.  In fact Pandora is the only publisher in the top 9 which is NOT owned by FB or Google.  In this age of digital consolidation it’s cool there’s still room at the top for independent companies who are focused on their own mission, and not just part of a larger internet juggernaut.  http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-top-mobile-apps-chart-2016-9

A VERY MOBILE CHRISTMAS:  And finally today, eMarketer has increased its holiday eCommerce forecast to +17% YoY, for a total of $885B.  That’s an amazing number considering overall holiday spending is only expected to increase 3-4% tops.  The real shocker is inside the numbers though.  eMarketer is predicting more will be purchased via smartphone than tablet this holiday season.  If true, Holiday’17 will be known as the beginning of the mCommerce era.  Who needs old fashioned eCommerce anyways?!?  http://radioink.com/2016/09/27/prediction-holiday-ecommerce-sales-jump-17-2/

Have a great Thursday guys!

iHEART’S NATIONAL DEBT:  Here’s a fun factoid to get your day started . . . . iHeart is asking to borrow more money.  This time it’s another $500M, which will buy them about 18 months of operating time at their current net loss level.  They’ll need to pay senior debt holders $8.6M just for permission to borrow another half a billion.  And you thought your bookie was tough!  If iHeart gets approval to borrow the additional money their total leverage will grow to ~$22.5B.  By comparison, if iHeart were its own country this amount would rank their national debt at #72 on the global debt rankings list.  So basically they’ll be in worse shape financially than Cuba!  Does this make Bob Pittman the Fidel Castro of radio?!?  (sorry)  http://www.insideradio.com/free/iheart-requests-debt-load-increase/article_58523ef0-84f5-11e6-85e8-3b0179c5f322.html

YOUTH MARKETING VIA ENGAGEMENT:  The following is a great showcase article from Mobile Marketer on Pandora’s ability to reach Gen Zers.  In the piece Heidi Browning articulates the importance of engagement as a marketing vehicle to reach youth demos.  The logic trail is sound – Gen Zers and the younger half of Millennials are more cross-connected than ever before.  This interactivity makes them time poor and fragments marketers’ ability to create a brand identity with this group.  The solution is time spent . . . or in another word, engagement.  Marketers can harness the power of publishers who command engagement with younger consumers, and break through the media clutter to effectively story tell and relationship build.  We’ve been beating the engagement drum for a while now, but I’d argue it’s more relevant today than ever before.  http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/music/23694.html

INSIDE THE MIND OF IOVINE:  I thought I would leave you today with a fascinating Buzzfeed interview featuring Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine.  It’s a fairly complex piece, so save it for when you have a quiet 15 minutes.  In it, Jimmy touts the accomplishments of Apple Music (of course), but also gets introspective on the challenges.  The most poignant comments are in the middle of the article, when Jimmy discusses the need to appease artists, labels and consumers – not an easy trifecta to solve for.  He also gets real on the issue of exclusives, and what life could be like for Apple Music in a post-exclusive world.  No real sales point to this article, but good to understand the mindset and motivations of a prominent player in the music ecosystem.  https://www.buzzfeed.com/reggieugwu/inside-apple-musics-second-act?utm_term=.mh7KqLzEx#.xc4BV3ayp

Have a great Wednesday guys!

ANYONE WANT TO BUY A BIRDIE?:  This video link in this article is a little dated from Friday, but I still think it’s worth sharing.  There’s much speculation in the Silicon Valley that a tech services company like Salesforce or a tech biggie like Google, or even an entertainment company like Disney might be looking to acquire Twitter.  This is in line with the “dance partner” theory in the wake of Microsoft’s recent acquisition of LinkedIn.  The Valley and The Street alike know there’s value in Twitter’s existing social network and 100Mish registered user base.  It’s just a matter of who’s willing to pair up at the right price.  It’ll be interesting to watch this one play out.  http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/twitter-may-receive-formal-bid-shortly-suitors-said-to-include-salesforce-and-google.html?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWWpWaE1Ua3dOV0l6WVRkbCIsInQiOiJ2MFhGbmVrRnUzOUhWdUx4Z1RmZDRQNU9kQWh0V3ErK1g0VHduSnRLekVueEp6YnZ1VzA5WHEyeG5vTHZkeHNaOGQzK1hYNml3NFR2OUNkT2xoSCsrZjZPWHdKMjRkNjF6N3ZIazFaaGNkST0ifQ%3D%3D

THE STATE OF SOCIAL:  Continuing with today’s Social theme, check out this link from AdAge.  It’s an all-in 101 on today’s Social landscape expressed across nine graphs.  The overall usage graph below shouldn’t be surprising – with 5-6 lead dogs (if you include Pintrest).  Perhaps the most shocking data is that 5^th graph, showing FB’s dominance with ~75% of total Social ad spending in the US.  What’s even crazier is that AdAge’s Datacenter predicts FB’s share of Social rev will even go higher in 2017 and 2018 . . . nice to be the king, eh?  I think graph 7 is also interesting, showing the rapid increase of mobile usage across all Social platforms.  Tons of good info to chomp on here!  http://adage.com/article/news/social-media-poster/305631/

THE POWER OF ADDRESSABILITY:  Over the past few months Pandora has introduced addressability into the audio conversation.  In its simplest form addressability separates overall scale for the portion of an audience advertisers can actually reach.  The following AdWeek article takes the benefits of addressable TV one step further, by espousing advantages in efficiency, ROI tracking, and following viewers across multiple devices.  Of course this all derives from having a registered viewer base, so advertisers can pinpoint who they’re reaching vs. buying a show whose audience fits the demo of their customer.  The argument for addressable TV creates the perfect roadmap for addressable audio, since streamers with registered listeners can target their audience in the same way.  In my mind, addressable advertising isn’t just a “nice to have” part of your sell, it’s table stakes all publishers and broadcaster must bring if they want to compete on tomorrow’s media battlefield.  http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/5-things-you-should-know-about-addressable-ads-more-dollars-shift-digital-173653

Have a great Tuesday guys!

FB VIDEO FIASCO:  It appears the new trend in digital media is to self-admit a mistake you’ve made and hope people will forgive you for the honesty.  Facebook is testing the boundaries of this theory with Friday’s disclosure that they grossly over exaggerated the amount of time users were spending watching video ads OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS.  What?!?  The mistake seems like a pretty crafty one.  In simple terms, average time spent should be the total time watching videos divided by the total number of views.  However, FB was only counting videos watched for more than three seconds in the calculation.  And by only counting the longer view sessions the average time spent went up . . . of course.  Then FB projected that stat across all their video views as they sold video ads, despite the fact that the 1-3 second views were conveniently omitted.  For a company as sophisticated as FB it’s hard to believe this could just happen by mistake.  http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-overestimated-key-video-metric-for-two-years-1474586951

EVERYBODY’S GETTING IN THE ON-DEMAND SANDBOX:  On Friday the rumors about iHeart’s pending two-tiered on-demand service came to fruition, with a January launch announcement.  This is the ultimate me too move following Pandora, even down to the price points and naming conventions used.  However, one unique wrinkle is the functionality allowing listeners to save a song they’re hearing on an iHeart station directly to their on-demand play list.  This is a smart move since the vast majority of iHeart’s digital audience is just an extension of their broadcast listening.  As for incremental listeners who just want on-demand, iHeart doesn’t have much in the way of competitive differentiation to offer.  So I doubt this will be a game changer in the industry.  http://rainnews.com/iheartmedia-confirms-on-demand-two-flavors-january-launch/

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE #1:  Last week I referenced a MusicWatch study showing that Pandora commands 30% of all the internet music streaming in the United States.  TechTimes has conveniently packaged this data up into a killer article for the P.  The disparity between Pandora’s scale and especially Apple’s is startling.  I think the buying community perceives this to be a much closer horse race than it really is.  Make sure you circulate this to all your buyers and clients!  http://www.techtimes.com/articles/178538/20160921/new-data-shows-pandora-has-fifteen-times-more-u-s-streams-weekly-than-apple-music-which-is-tied-with-soundcloud-and-vevo.htm

Have a great Monday guys!

DENTSU DISCLOSURE:  As a follow up to yesterday’s post on the 4As’ move to create fee transparency standards for its member agencies, Dentsu just self-announced “irregularities” in some of the digital business it’s placed for Toyota.  On the surface this sounds bad, but it’s actually being lauded as a major step in the right direction since it’s one of the few times a HC has proactively admitted to something like this.  What’s more interesting is that the Dentsu disclosure appears to be the first of several similar announcements agencies will make in the coming months.  Moves like this may actually clear the air and lead to a healthy level of fee transparency between agencies and their clients.  More to come on this topic, I’m sure.  http://adage.com/article/agency-news/ana-applauds-dentsu-mum-reports-major-marketer-audits/305981/

CONNECTED CAR BATTLE:  At this week’s NAB Radio Show in Nashville Scott Burnell, an engineering exec from Ford, conducted an interview-style presentation on radio’s position in the connected car head units of the future.  The assessment must have been very sobering for the broadcasters, as it was very positive for the streamers.  In particular check out Mr. Burnell’s responses to questions 4 and 5.  The idea that it’s now a level playing field, where in-car listeners can choose whatever content they want to listen to, is welcome news for any in-dash players who’ve battled radio’s incumbency for years.  And what’s most exciting is Ford’s commitment to place holding between drives.  In other words, if you were listening to Pandora when you turned the car off you’ll hear Pandora when you turn the car back on.  Now that would truly be a level playing field!  http://radioink.com/2016/09/22/radios-place-dash/

TRAVELERS BEWARE:  Recently Forbes polled its readers to determine the 20 worst business travel mistakes you can make.  I thought it might be fun to end the week with a share-and-compare from this list.  I travel almost every week, so I figured it would make sense for me to go first.  From the attached list I have fallen victim to 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 (worst story ever), 7, 9, 10 (I’ll never learn), 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.  In fact, most of the top 20 mistakes I haven’t made involve international travel, which I normally don’t do.  So I’m guilty on 13 of the 20 top mistakes.  Can anyone top that?!?  http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2016/09/21/the-20-worst-mistakes-you-can-make-on-a-business-trip/#47d190b9711f

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!