This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Guy Kawasaki discusses the four qualities of innovation that successful products need.
• The New Yorker asks whether the Kindle can really improve the book.
• Ryan Sholin provides a good list of posts covering the evolution of news.
• Fast Company ponders whether the digital divide has really been bridge or if rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
• This list of 20 small business blogs includes sites that provides tips and report on trends, among others.
• The Atlantic posted this fascinating report on “The State of Charity.” (there’s also this from U.S. News)
• Sometimes it helps to have a wingman for social networking.

This past weekend, I hated clients. I refused to do any work. I refused to worry about what Monday was going to bring. I refused to go over in my head how we were going to meet all of the deadlines in front of us. I refused to spend any time with budgets or spreadsheets. As a result, Monday was awful, Tuesday was as bad as Monday, and Wednesday, well it’s just starting.

The lesson? Love your clients 24/7, no matter what it does to your weekend.

(Note to any clients who may read this post: The “hating clients” is simply a metaphor. I love you deeply.)

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Here’s a Blogen-bonus question to ponder: Can anybody tell me what the President, the Harvard professor, and the Cambridge policeman drinking a beer at a picnic table on the White House lawn is going to do for race relations in America? Will this be the official post-racial beer that so many delusional pundits have been thirsting for?

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Moving toward a social media etiquette.
• Sharing on Facebook is now more popular than sharing via e-mail.
• GaryV throws some praise in an unexpected direction – AOL’s. (caution: some language)
• According to a poll by Time magazine, Jon Stewart is now the most trusted newsman in America.
• How do the most engaging brands do it?

My 15-year-old daughter tells me I am, perhaps, the most popular father among her friends. I think that’s because, while I try to be helpful, supportive, and a good taxi driver, I act like her father not her friend. And I’ve certainly acted like her father — some times not so pleasantly — in front of her friends.
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This article about a famous professor who happens to be black being arrested is why I warn my 15-year-old son every time he goes into a store by himself.
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The best fireworks are a surprise. My son and I were driving home from Hershey, PA, on Saturday night. As we were coming down Rt. 15 through Gettysburg a fireworks display was starting. We pulled over to the shoulder and watched. It was a perfect vantage point. The finale was great. Very cool.
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Few things are more satisfying than dropping your 15-year-old son at an airport to fly then bus to a camp, and have him actually get there.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Crocs may very well be on their last legs.
• Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. Follow along online at We Choose the Moon.
• Is your company or agency creating a conversation with its customers, or is it the same old routine?
• Yes, your smartphone can now even help your golf game.
• Chris Brogan explains how NOT to influence him with a pitch and how TO influence him.

Last week, I, along with a member of our staff, visited an out-of-town client for two meetings. The first meeting focused on redesign of their website. My colleague did such a nice job that some participants in this meeting assumed his expertise was only online public relations — they were surprised to learn he was participating in the second meeting, which focused on a more traditional media outreach project.

From our perspective, there’s really no difference. Whatever the medium for message delivery — online, traditional media, word of mouth — it’s basically all the same. It’s a canvas for our creativity.
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Anybody who has watched Tiger Woods play golf has seen him stop in the middle of his swing when he gets distracted by a noise. Anybody who has ever played golf knows how nearly impossible that is to do. At these same meetings, I did the meeting equivalent of stopping in the middle of my swing.

I was asked a question. I spoke for, I don’t know, maybe 25 seconds, and then I just stopped. I literally said this: “I’m going to stop talking. As I listen to myself I realize I’m not answering the question well. I’m going to let somebody else respond.”

Just call me Tiger.

This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• The last four phone booths in New York City still holding on. If you find yourself near one of these, hop inside while they are still around.
• But not all old things are destined for history books. Incandescent bulbs are back on the cutting edge.
• Walmart has joined the Twitter-sphere, but it comes with a 3,379-word Terms of Use agreement.
• The Discovery Channel ramps up their annual promotion of Shark Week with some pretty cool ideas for involving bloggers.
• Did you hear the one about the musician who took his expensive guitar on a United Airlines flight? No? Well, AdAge has the whole story and some timely lessons for all businesses.

Me, doing my best hip-hop moves: Yo yo, playa, birdie.

My 15-year-old son: Dad, please stop. You’re not funny.

Me: Yes I am. I’m cracking myself up.

My 15-year-old son: Can you crack yourself quietly?

As I get very close to 50, a few things are becoming clear. For one, imagining one’s self as John Wayne, able to protect all loved ones from all bad, is ludicrous. Aspiring to be Robert Young in Father Knows Best is much more realistic.

Second, the rarest pleasure is nothing. Those moments of absolute clarity, where all that is in your head is only what’s right in front of you, are intoxicating and are to be savored, for they are infrequent.

And third — and this one I’ve known for a long time — no matter how hot you think you are, women 30 and below look at you as a nice old guy.

After a week attending to some client business, we’re back with this week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Anil Dash covers an interesting debate between Malcolm Gladwell and Wired’s Chris Anderson regarding the use of data and anecdotal evidence to support social and economic theories.
• The Council on Public Relations offers some advice on responding to RFPs in the way clients want.
• Steve Rubel is moving from blogging to “lifestreaming.” (Jeremiah Owyang covers the trend here.)
• PSFK asks its experts, The Purple List, what the future of journalism will look like. Some of the answers are typical, but there are some interesting and fresh insights there too.
• … as the AP continues to stumble its way through how its content is posted on social media platforms, this time by employees.