Desire Paths: When Best Laid Plans Go Astray

Architects and planners regularly apply sound design principles to help pedestrians navigate public spaces. Despite their acumen and expertise, people also have their own ideas and like to blaze new trails.

While this can be maddening to some in the urban planning community, others find it fascinating and embrace it.

It’s been described as “collective disobedience.” It also reflects our innate desire to find the shortest distance between two points.

The response to these paths usually takes one of two forms.

The authoritarian approach typically involves “blocking it off with some type of obstacle – a fence, a bush, a pile of brush, a sharply (if, in this case, politely) worded sign” (as pictured above).

Meanwhile, the democratic approach is to observe and learn as people vote with their feet. It’s an approach typically found on college campuses, where new paths are made permanent with pavement. For example, places like The Oval at The Ohio State University shown below.

This democratic approach is certainly more iterative and collaborative, but it stops well short of blindly formalizing every whim of the crowd, which can lead to a chopped up and “manic accumulation of concrete.”

As it turns out though, adopting a democratic approach to urban design rather than fighting to maintain an old school authoritarian model will more effectively meet the conditions and realities of planning public spaces and communities in an emerging Climate Responsible world.

Relevance to Radio

All of this presents an interesting analogy to the ongoing evolution of media consumption. Long gone are the days of the authoritarian delivery model as exemplified by Walter Cronkite’s famous closing line on the CBS Evening News, “That’s the way it is.”

When it comes to music consumption, waiting to hear your favorite song has given way to on-demand access to an entire library that’s available on your phone or smart speaker. As a result, the best programmers, like innovative urban designers, continue to evolve.

Just as paving every foot path is not good planning or design, neither is blindly championing user driven content as we continue to see on social media along with brand safety concerns among advertisers.

The professional curation of great content delivered by trusted personalities who inform and entertain is incredibly important and powerful. In addition, while radio is sometimes criticized for being too corporate and authoritarian, flipping a format, launching a morning show, and spotlighting new music are all examples of a democratic approach to programming.

Whether it’s public spaces or listening to the radio, people vote with their feet. Ratings also help ensure a democratic approach to programming. Are people utilizing the available audio sidewalks or do programmers need to pave new ones? In the case of ESPN Deportes, the sidewalk is being removed altogether.

For our part, we’ve been encouraging listeners to create their own path with station contest times. Dating back to the days of faxed-in contest entries, mailed-in reply cards and continuing today with mobile activations, we invite listeners to customize their contest times on a listening grid.

These heavy listeners get the very real benefit of maximizing their chances of winning, while specifically thinking about where they can fit more occasions with the station into their work day and commute.

Concrete paths aren’t permanent and neither are station formats. By adapting to changes in listening behavior over time, radio remains the 800 pound gorilla of audio and the best place for advertisers to reach the employed consumers with money to spend.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

This is Your Captain Speaking: Lessons from 39,000 Feet

After 105 years of commercial aviation (including buzzing the beach to land in St. Maarten), airlines are the definition of a boom or bust industry. In recent years, low oil prices, a strong economy and favorable labor contracts have helped unleash robust profitability.

What has been their secret to success? For U.S. global heavyweights – Delta, American and United, it’s a strategic focus on those who matter most. Specifically, high value and frequent business travelers.

Even Southwest, the industry’s most consistently profitable airline for 45 years, has undergone a strategic shift as they aggressively compete for business travel.

According to American Airlines, business travelers represent just 13% of their total passengers, while delivering 50% of the revenue. As a result, business travelers generate 6.7 times more revenue than leisure passengers who fly the airline just once per year and see travel as a commodity.

Over the last few years, basic economy has gone bare bones as carriers have realized they aren’t competing with each other (in this tier of seats) for passengers who expect top notch service. Rather, they are competing with low cost carriers like Allegiant, Frontier and Spirit, where you pay a la carte for everything beyond the bare minimum.

Not All Passengers (or Listeners) Are Created Equal

Business travelers spend more and travel more often. Same is true for your heavy listeners. They consistently deliver more occasions and TSL. It’s not simply about executing on-air strategies that keep them listening longer. By definition they have more time to give and come back more often. The key to ratings and revenue is for your brand to win more of these occasions from the heavies.

For airlines, it’s why frequent flyer programs are such an important part of their strategy. In fact earlier this year, American Surprised & Delighted their Concierge Key members with gifts allowing them to say thank you in a unique and personal way.

Earning and keeping frequent flyer status is so important that Delta just made headlines with Reclaim My Status allowing elite customers to keep their Medallion status despite a downturn in travel following a life event.

Hold onto your flotation device, because according to Delta, “We’re always looking for new ways to take care of our customers and that includes injecting even more empathy into travel … Loyalty goes both ways.”

Speaking of empathy and focusing on what matters most to business travelers, Delta is also currently testing free wi-fi on its flights.

Like audio, aviation has grown exponentially in recent years with more than 42,000 cities around the world being connected by a direct flight. More than double the number from 20 years ago. Meanwhile, passenger counts have also increased from 1.5 billion to 4 billion annually.

Yet, by focusing on the few who matter most (business travelers who spend more and fly more often), legacy carriers are consistently generating billions in annual profits, despite increased low cost competition and online booking sites that help passengers find the lowest cost flights.

As you know from your own recent travels, flights have never been so full.

Delta’s Reclaim My  Status initiative is a great reminder of the upcoming changes in PUMM levels as the school year comes to an end.

Who are your most important working parents and what’s your strategy to interact with them directly off-air this summer? With school out, their listening patterns will predictably change, despite no loss of affinity for your station or Nielsen doing anything wrong.

It’s not just the end of the school year or the Christmas season that changes listening habits. Life events can happen at any time. One of our clients recently received a comment from a loyal listener in their database who mentioned a death in the family, which caused them to drop everything for a couple of weeks, including listening to the radio.

As life returned to normal, they started listening again and reached out to let the station know how nice it was to hear their favorite personalities again and how much they missed the connection. The sympathy card this listener is about to receive from the station will certainly be prominently displayed all summer, not to mention the conversations it will create about the station with family, friends and co-workers. Safe to say, our client will be the only brand sending a sympathy card.

In the immortal words of Delta Airlines, “Loyalty goes both ways.”

For its part, American isn’t worried about trying to super-serve the equivalent of their cume – the 87% of passengers who fly only once per year.

Their efforts are focused on the heavies who provide a disproportionate impact.

For radio, heavy listeners deliver on average 4x the occasions and TSL as light listeners. As a result, it’s another reminder that not all listeners (or airline passengers) are created equal.

In fact, merely capturing audience data is easy. It’s about building relationships and using data analytics to identify those who matter most today, so you can increase their occasions, while deploying a strategy to cultivate more heavy listeners including the ones you’ll need tomorrow to continue driving ratings and revenue.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Voice Command: Leveraging the Smart Home to Win the Connected Car

The combination of smart devices, mobile technology and voice command is changing consumer behavior before our very eyes.

Our homes have become a hub of smart and mobile technology impacting everything from TV viewing to changing the thermostat.  

Radio consumption is no exception. As Bob Pittman mentioned to Caroline Beasley, “Alexa turned out to be the new radio.”

Maximizing the Opportunity

While the internet provides for seemingly infinite capacity, human evolution has not kept pace. We are still limited by how many things we simultaneously pay attention to and create habits around in our daily lives.

As a point of reference, despite more than 2 million apps being available to download, people spend virtually all of their time with less than 10 apps, while their top 3 drive 80% of consumption. Three out of 2 million is the definition of a long tail.

Moving to the physical world, the limits of our mental capacity are alive and well. Research indicates that people across big cities and small towns visit just 25 places in the midst of their daily lives. In addition, despite the ability to have thousands of connections on LinkedIn and Facebook, offline, we only have active relationships with 150 people.

This never-ending digital abundance held in contrast with our scarcity of attention is a fascinating dynamic.

Leading the way in this fight for our attention and loyalty are the companies making the devices, notably Google, Apple and Amazon.

With all the promise of voice command, radio’s ability to generate Mind Share is going to be imperative. Not only is AM/FM radio offering curated, linear programming on a device built for on-demand personalization, but we’re competing to form habits and drive usage against every brand with a voice command strategy.

In addition, when voice commands are given to smart speakers, a single result is produced. Compare that to search results shown on a screen, which include multiple options both paid and organic. That means voice command becomes a winner takes all proposition.

While voice command skills need to work effortlessly, Top of Mind awareness comes first. Either your brand is asked for by name and you win the Moment of Truth or the occasion is lost.

Let’s Keep Our Eye on the Prize, We’re Playing with House Money

When it comes to fleeting attention spans and limited recall, radio’s position as the largest reach medium is a tremendous competitive advantage. People know us and love us.

Smart speakers around the house can be our development sandbox. 75% of radio consumption takes place outside the home. As a result, we can test and measure different voice command strategies that provide an incremental lift with more at-home listening, but the real win for radio will be when this smart home strategy carries over into the connected car and we continue to dominate drive time consumption.

In a world of global brands using chat bots and artificial voices to interact with consumers, radio’s local brands and real personalities will shine even brighter and provide a significant competitive advantage.

When it comes to who’s interacting with your station via voice command today, it’s your existing Super-Fans and P1s. According to Matt Bailey, president of Integr8 Research, “people who do still own a radio beyond their cars are four times more likely to stream a local FM station.” He continues, “Listeners who use radio do so because-they really like radio! … Instead of trying to win over the self-curation control freaks, or conversely the listeners who don’t care that much about music in the first place, radio should seek to maximize listenership from folks who already love radio.”

Further insight in this regard, comes from what we’ve discussed about heavy listeners for years. They give radio 31 occasions per week, compared with light listeners who provide just 7 occasions. As a result, your heavy P1s are the ones being consistently exposed to your smart speaker promotional inventory and email newsletter messages. These are the listeners who know your station inside and out, including their favorite benchmarks and when they air.

Remind them that if they get home early, they can still enjoy their favorite drive time feature, simply by pulling up the station on their smart speaker. Not only are you engaging those employed, heavy listeners who matter most to your ratings and revenue, but you’re actually generating more listening occasions. All that practice at home will continue to pay off as the competition for drive time and work place engagement increases.

These voice command insights will also help accelerate the development of habit formation as we acquire more heavy listeners by continuing to grow Mind Share for your local brands and win hard fought listening occasions.

We also know that even your best P1 listeners spend 94% of their lives away from the radio, so as you build momentum on the home front, your investment in an effective off-air messaging strategy related to voice command can be leveraged to accelerate momentum.

In the meantime, not generating sufficient traction with your voice command strategy? We can help drive Top of Mind awareness with those employed, heavy listeners who matter most.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Curbside Retail: What it Means for Impulse Buys and Your Station

Retailers have always differentiated themselves on brand, assortment and price.

For Wal-Mart, Target and others, there’s now a fourth leg to the stool: fulfillment (speed and convenience), which is driving curbside pickup and home delivery.

According to Forbes, “How fast and how easily products can be acquired from a brand are now as important to differentiation as any logo, any price point, or any given product itself.”

This changing consumer behavior creates both opportunities and risk.

Americans spend on average $3,800 per year on impulse buys at the grocery store, driving $485 billion in retail sales. Those dollars are not just meaningful to retailers, but critical to individual brands. Whether it’s a 6 pack of craft beer or a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, as consumers reduce their in-store occasions, being top of mind becomes increasingly important.

As Comscore President Sarah Hofstetter says, “You don’t even have to walk into a store, which means brands are more important than ever before because if you’re not top of mind, you ain’t getting on that shopping list.”

The Ad Age article continues, “Brands must find ways to stand out now more than ever, experts say. When Walmart, the biggest customer for numerous marketers including Kraft Heinz, is highlighting curbside pickup in its ads, it’s clear that brands can’t rely on tried-and-true methods such as in-store displays.”

Radio’s Version of In-Store Display: The On-Air Promo

With seasonal and year over year changes in AQH and TSL, the ability for stations to rely on on-air promos to drive listening occasions is impacted. Regardless how good your product is, if your station is not top of mind as the listener tunes-in, you’re not going to win the occasion.

One important way for retail and brands to stay top of mind is by leveraging insights from the data to truly understand their customers. With online orders, consumers are generating a treasure trove of information into how their family shops and makes purchase decisions, including items that are abandoned in their digital carts.

This level of data analytics also allows for consumers to be segmented, messaged and engaged accordingly. For example, with data from grocery store shopper cards, consumers are sent coupons for complimentary and competing items, personalized just for them.

In addition, retailers and brands are able to see how various consumer segments and demographics behave and prioritize their efforts accordingly. Despite curbside pickup and online retail generating headlines and robust growth, 90% of retail is still brick and mortar.

It’s the same with audio. Streaming and podcasting are generating a lot of buzz, but 90% of consumption and profitability is over-the-air AM/FM.

For radio, our employed, heavy listeners tune-in an average of 31 times per week. Winning more of these occasions from heavy deeps and heavy shallows is the difference between winning and losing. It starts with having a clear brand position and being top of mind before the listener gives a voice command to their smart speaker, gets into their car or arrives at work.

Kraft, Tide and other brand advertisers have started pulling back on hyper-targeted digital ads, which has benefited radio revenue in recent quarters.

In a similar way, despite ongoing concerns about Nielsen sample size, the fact remains that new households are coming into the PPM panel every day and new people are filling out diaries each week.

That reality along with the 6-10% monthly churn in meter carriers, means that a hyper focus on the top 25 listeners in the CPR report is too limiting. It requires you to always be reacting and trying to catch up vs. already having relationships in place with the employed heavy listeners who matter most.

By cultivating a listener database, it allows you to maximize your current ratings and stay ahead of the curve as new Hot ZIPs emerge. The result: you consistently win more of those 31 occasions per week.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thanks for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Radio Listening Increases with Higher Employment, Education and Income according to research

For many, their perception of radio doesn’t match reality, especially as it’s illustrated in this powerful chart from Deloitte regarding employment, education and income.

As the director of research for the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) industry with Deloitte, Duncan Stewart has a very interesting perspective on the global media landscape.

His perspective on the Revenue, Reach and Resilience of Radio in 2019 should be required reading for everyone in radio and strategically shared with our advertisers.

What’s driving the misconception about radio? According to Mr. Stewart, “there is a narrative that new media kills old media, so nobody bothers to look at evidence that doesn’t fit the narrative.”

As part of the ongoing series Radio Rally Point, Andrew Curran with DMR/Interactive had a chance recently to catch up with Mr. Stewart.

Deloitte’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications is a global practice that has been publishing its annual Predictions report since 2001. For 2019, the report features important insights on rapid growth industries such as machine learning, 5G as well as insight on the impact of legalized sports gambling on TV consumption. Throughout this project, what did you discover (or perhaps rediscover) about radio?

Stewart: Our annual Predictions report covers 10-12 different topics every year. As I was working on the topic list for 2019, I noticed that we had not written about radio since 2009! After 10 years, and an industry that is going to be over $40 billion in size, the topic seemed well overdue. The deeper I dug into radio numbers, and as I analyzed the results of the exclusive survey Deloitte conducted, the more I realized that radio was being unjustifiably overlooked. It deserved its own Prediction, and the story was much better than most media analysts seemed to believe.

In the article, you state that “American 18–34-year-olds will likely spend more time listening to radio than watching traditional TV by 2025!” That’s a bold prediction that demonstrates both the challenges facing TV as well as the power of radio. Yet, some might believe the decline of radio has already happened. From your perspective, what creates the perception that “nobody listens to radio anymore?”

Stewart: That prediction actually isn’t very bold at all. If you look at the Nielsen numbers for radio and TV daily listening/viewing for that age group, it is really obvious the lines are going to cross at some point in the next decade. Based on data from November (when the Prediction was going through final edits) that looked to happen by 2025, but based on more recent data, it could be even sooner. Sometimes making Predictions is hard, but this was just simple extrapolation: A chimp with a ruler and a steady hand could have done it!

Plus, I cheated and looked outside North America. I found a trove of radio data for the Nordic countries, and discovered that radio listening minutes for younger demographics was already higher than linear TV viewing minutes in Sweden and Finland, and was going to crossover in Denmark in 2019. The media market in the Nordics and North America are hardly identical, but there are some similarities.

Why do people think that nobody listens to radio anymore? Because they don’t look at the numbers. The data is clear, publicly available and easy to interpret. But it doesn’t fit the narrative that new media kills old media, so nobody bothers to look at the evidence.

In addition to employment driving overall listening, your research reveals that with higher education and income levels, the more likely someone is to listen to the radio. Education, employment and income sound like the audience equivalent of an advertising holy grail. Are these fundamentals driving the resilience of radio?

Stewart: They don’t hurt! Add in the fact that radio weekly reach for young people is now better than TV, and you have four strong demographic reasons for advertisers to think about radio. But as always, I want to put that into context. Radio is not “better than” TV or digital … it is different, and is yet another possible channel to think about. Our argument is not that radio should take over, merely that it should not be ignored.

You prescribe “an aggressive campaign of mythbusting– always backed up by hard evidence — will likely need to be a key strategy for broadcasters and their industry associations worldwide.” Can you share more on the necessity of this prescription?

Stewart: I think the biggest trend in media over the next few years is going to be a shift towards “evidence-based advertising.” This is just like evidence-based medicine: Who cares what everybody is doing in terms of treating knee injuries? Let’s look at the data and see what actually works. As part of that, media analysts and ad buyers are going to need more data on radio, TV, print, OOH and digital. All using truly comparable metrics. I have seen some excellent work from Ebiquity on radio, and I wrote the Prediction in hopes of striking a roughly similar tone and robust use of data.

That said, both Ebiquity and I have a problem. When we are at a conference (this is a real story!), and we come on stage to talk about radio … half the room leaves for a smoke or to get a coffee, and the other half pick up their phones and check their e-mails. We can’t pretend: In the media landscape of 2019, radio just isn’t seen as sexy.

And some of that is partially justified. Global radio revenues (ads, subscriptions and government grants) will be about $40B in 2019, which is about the same size as the video game and movie industries – pretty good! But globally, the magazine industry is twice the size of radio in terms of dollars, newspaper revenues are nearly four times bigger (yes, still), and TV is 10X radio at over $400 billion annually. Size matters…

You mentioned the move to evidence-based advertising. Can you share some additional context in that regard?

Stewart: Looking at the history of advertising over the last 50-75 years, you can see a pendulum as it relates to spending by industry. In the early years of TV (1950s), there was an under-investment in the new platform compared to more established media. By the 1980s, audience fragmentation was happening and ad execs believed an over-investment was taking place in TV as the pendulum started swinging the other way and a pullback happened.

Fast forward to today and advertisers are already starting to realign their investment in digital. This should be a great opportunity for radio and other traditional platforms as decisions become more evidence based. The digital companies flooded the market with audience data, which helped show advertisers what’s possible. Now radio and other mediums are stepping up their game and have an opportunity to tell a very compelling story.

The speed of the pendulum, not just with advertising, but with technology overall continues to accelerate. How much faster can it move?

Stewart: It sure feels that way, from roughly 2000-2013 innovation and disruption occurred at a frantic pace. However, as you can see in this chart, consumer spending on hardware (smartphones, computers, TV and everything else too) peaked in 2013 and has been on a slow but steady decline. Obviously, smart speaker sales have picked up, which is great news for radio, but overall, it’s a $7 billion category in a $890 billion consumer spending universe.

When people aren’t spending their discretionary income on buying new hardware, it leaves room in the budget for subscriptions. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sirius XM, etc. In fact, we’re not in an era of cord cutting as much as an era of cord stacking. We predict that by the end of this year the average U.S. household will have five different digital subscriptions.

Innovation and disruption are nothing new, but the rate of change in hardware and devices has slowed for now, which creates a great opportunity for radio to leverage its audience data and tell its story.

That’s a great perspective that steps back and provides helpful context to the current media and technology landscape. Keeping in mind this big picture, if you were delivering a keynote to a conference of North American radio broadcasters, what takeaway would you emphasize?

Stewart: Radio’s not dead, it’s not dying, it doesn’t even have the sniffles. The industry is growing globally, is surprisingly popular with Millennials, and most people don’t know that! You know how radio is great for finding that new band before most of your friends know about it?

I picture Millennial ad execs in 2039 sitting around, still eating avocado toast, and bragging to their peers: “I liked radio before it was popular.”

Deloitte’s analysis on AM/FM radio in the report, Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions 2019 can be found here along with the complete version.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Radio in an On-Demand World: When Everybody Zigs, Zag

Conversations about radio’s evolving role in an on-demand world are inescapable.

Yet, despite a variety of efforts for more than a decade, consumers continue to resist listening to significant amounts of linear programming on smart devices.

Meanwhile, downward pressure on spot revenue, continues to increase.

In the midst of this, the words of Henry Ford come to mind, “the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”

Whether we’re talking about audience size, consumption dominance, profitability or other key metrics, the numbers are overwhelmingly in favor of radio.

Much can also be said about the incredible demographics working in radio’s favor, which advertisers tend to overlook in favor of placing ad buys on platforms with click farms and bot traffic.

Meanwhile, our value proposition with advertisers has never been so compelling, our audience is built on three things: education, employment and income.

The higher your education level, the more you work and the higher income you have, the more you listen to radio.

These insights reflect research from Deloitte, which Tim Moore from Audience Development Group highlighted last week in his Midweek Motivator column. It tees up a very compelling elevator speech: the more education, employment, and income a person has, the more radio they listen to.

This article Radio: Revenue, reach and resilience should be required reading for everyone working in radio as well as our advertisers.

In addition, as the world grows more fragmented and individualistic, radio’s ability to deliver a shared experience becomes even more important and enduring.

If you have teenagers using social media, you’ve likely heard about the growing amounts of research that connect usage with depression.

In social media, posts are almost always about self-promotion and curating the perfect life. Meeting a celebrity, taking an amazing vacation, front row seats. The list goes on.

In reality though, there’s a very real cost.

According to research in Psychological Science, unusual experiences alienate us from our peers. “Extraordinary experiences are both different from and better than the experiences that most other people have,” the authors note, “and being both alien and enviable is an unlikely recipe for popularity.”

Turns out, we think that seeing or doing amazing things will make us feel better than people who haven’t; it actually makes us feel worse. It creates isolation and loneliness.

The article continues, “We don’t realize the extent to which we are influenced by people around us.”

These insights about the importance of shared experiences and being part of a peer group, are at the heart of our audience amplification strategy, which leverages Super-Fans of your brand to reach even more of your best listeners.

By empowering your P1s to Surprise and Delight their family, friends and co-workers, while tuning in and enjoying “can’t miss moments” on-air, it taps right into the power of shared experience, which is fundamental to radio’s ongoing competitive advantage in an on-demand world.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thanks for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO

Multi-Tasking Through a Crisis: Valentine’s Day 2019

If you’re looking for the next crisis, you’ve come to the right place. Candy conversation hearts, the iconic Valentine’s Day candy, won’t be on store shelves this year.

Necco (New England Confectionery Company), the parent company of Sweethearts, ceased operations back in July.

Now Americans are faced with the terrifying prospect of having to use their own words to express their love.

For any station that wants to save their listeners from this nightmare, the candy is being sold online, but due to anticipated demand, rationing has already begun.

Fortunately, plans are already in place to resume making the candy hearts next year. In the meantime, Krispy Kreme is stepping up to help fill the void.

With people wearing multiple hats and often finding that there aren’t enough hours in the day, how do we navigate the crisis of the moment and infinite distractions without sacrificing what’s truly important, but often not urgent?

Multi-Tasking Redefined

For many, multi-tasking is a necessary evil. Sitting through a meeting, means falling behind on email, so you pick up the phone and take a quick look.

Turns out, not all multi-tasking is created equally. According to Harvard Business Review,  there are “two types of multitasking — concurrent multitasking, in which you do two or more activities at the same time (talking on the phone while driving) and serial multitasking, in which you switch rapidly between tasks (preparing your next meeting and answering an email, being interrupted by a colleague, checking Twitter).”

Turns out, serial multitasking boils down to rapidly switching between activities. However, when we’re trying to do more than walk and chew gum or talking on the phone while driving, “there is a stop/start process that goes on in the brain. That start/stop/start process is rough on us: rather than saving time, it costs time (even very small micro seconds), it’s less efficient, we make more mistakes, and over time it can be energy sapping.”

All is not lost. According to an article in Fast Company, “While true multitasking–doing two or more things simultaneously–is rarely effective, sensible toggling among activities can be fruitful. ”

In fact, according to MIT research, “people who juggle between two and four projects at a time tend to be more productive than those who focus exclusively on one. This way, you can continue making progress in one area when you’ve temporarily run out of steam in another.”To help determine, whether or not multi-tasking is appropriate, Fast Company put together this matrix.

Whether the next crisis is real or imagined, the communities we serve turn to radio for context and information, so these skills are essential.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Doug Smith and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thanks for reading and working to drive radio forward.

– Andrew Curran, President and COO