Richard Warner Online

Not a lot of press on this yet, but Georgia is having measurable success with a program called “Work Ready.” Would you believe 1 in 4 Georgia students (mostly in rural areas) don’t graduate from high school? In an effort to improve that dismal number, the state operates a voluntary program called “Work Ready.” At the annual Georgia Department of Economic Development board meeting this week, the state revealed the stats: by testing those just out of high school to learn what skills they need for a particular job, they can learn online and be retested, giving the employer assurance that the hire will be a good fit. The program has cut the dropout rate in Georgia by 4% in just two years. 

Great panel at PRSA on Thursday: AJC, CBS News, WSB AM, People Magazine, LA Times all represented. My first question to them was what it’s like on the job these days. The print guys both said the same thing. (See headline.) One of the matters discussed briefly was the future of AJC Business Columnist Maria Saporta, who is one of 70 reporters accepting a buyout. She’s much too high profile to go unused, and isn’t talking about her next move. Could it be the Business Chronicle? Former publisher Ed Baker and I once talked about my taking a similar role for his paper, but he wasn’t impressed with what I could deliver in the way of business “gossip.” Maria owns that space. 

It’s Delta’s President and CFO Ed Bastian. In our interview taped Thursday that airs on GPB August 17th and 18th, I asked about his impression of the public’s flying experience. (Cattle in the air?) Turns out you’ll find the head of the soon-to-be largest airline in the world…flying Y-class on Delta flights. He often sits at the back of the plane to learn more about what customers experience and to ensure that full fare business passengers sit up front. I suspect that’s the CFO part of his job coming through.

Skip Caray, Braves’ play-by-play man for more than 33 years, passed on recently. He was remembered fondly by fans and by the AJC’s Furman Bisher, who called him a “curmudgeon.” I had been out of college and on the job at WSB AM Atlanta, the Braves’ flagship at the time. My instructions were to break into programming whenever news broke, so one night as a Braves commercial set was ending, I did. The story was about some Energy Department officials’ warning about potential of gas rationing. As I turned off the mic, Caray told the entire Braves network audience, “boy, everything’s a bulletin to that guy.” I wrote him a heated letter, which he returned with a handwritten note. You can imagine what it said. He was, indeed, a curmudgeon who had no trouble speaking his mind, and that’s the value he brought to Braves fans around the country.

I write a column for Business to Business Magazine…and in June, the topic was whether now is a good time to start a business. After all, our company opened its doors in the recession of 1990. We weren’t smart enough to know better. But we discovered that companies were looking to outsource to fill in gaps from all those full-timers they’d fired. Well, B2B is running an online poll, and the results: people think I’m crazy. 

My August B2B Magazine column is about the brutal reality facing many companies right now.

- General Motors (Dad is about to lose his health care coverage because the Supreme Court somehow ruled that GM didn’t have to make good on obligations to its workers)

- The AJC (user-gen content is fine, but what’s going to happen to Journalists who report for a living?)

- IndyMac (now the same pendulum that swung the other way and burdened companies with SOX is going to swing the other way and make homebuying much harder)

Brings to mind two books that every entrepreneur who is working through this gully in business should re-read: Winning by Jack Welch and Good to Great by Jim Collins. Got any suggestions of your own?

So on our show, taped today, the “5th Rolling Stone,” Chuck Leavell, shared the story about how he joined the group. (Keep in mind, as a youngster in Tuscalloosa, his band did cover versions of the Stones’ hits of the day.) Rock impresario Bill Graham in San Francisco heard Leavell play with the Allman Brothers and suggested that he be invited to audition with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in Boston. 

Leavell had a paid gig in Macon that weekend and asked if they could do it the following Monday, to which he was told, “no, get up here this afternoon.” Was he nervous? “No, I was just myself.” 25 years later, he is the musical director for the Rolling Stones…a long way from Tuscaloosa. 

Media Audit’s latest Web traffic ratings for Atlanta show we spend more time on Google, Yahoo and Weather.com than anywhere else on the Web, by far. More than any local media property, whether print or broadcast. That tells me something. There’s an opening for someone to do “local” correctly.

The business model isn’t clear yet. While Web advertising generates respectable dollars, TV stations, newspapers and radio stations still carry enormous overhead that makes it impossible to dedicate the necessary resources to their Web properties. But sooner or later, they will.

It’s going to be a hyper-local format. It will be the go-to place to read about why that restaurant closed or if the rumor is true about that new development going in. High school sports coverage with photos and videos submitted by the parents and a hyper-local “Craig’s List” for garage sales and ratings of local car repair shops.

The trouble for big local media players today, as Media Audit shows, is that they just aren’t in the business of providing relevant local news. Local TV is so intent on fast paced, visually appealing features that informed viewers aren’t sticking around. Local radio news is practically gone, the victim of industry cost-cutting and consolidation. Print is trying to make sense of the new economy by reducing and reassigning staff…the deck chairs on the Titanic scenario.

No, the business opportunity for the next Internet bubble will be hyper-local Web sites that will eventually get bought and consolidated by a big media company: a combination of mass media and hyper-local for a new age.