Getting things done

It's 9:35 p.m. Friday night. Do you know where your blog entry is?

It's only been a week since I made a commitment to document 3D Radio's progress on a weekly basis, but already I'm not sure what to say that will make a difference.

Sure, we accomplished a few things this week. The high point was executing an NDA with a company that approached us a few weeks ago about working together. We also set up an extended "getting to know you" call for next week.

We're hoping this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. What makes it most beautiful is that the phone rang on our end when our potential partner got wind of 3D Radio's terrific technology and wanted reach out to us. It was a welcome relief from our outreach efforts.

I spend much of each day in business development mode, dialing lead after lead hoping that someone on the other end will talk with me. Mostly I get voice messaging, sometimes an assistant, and occasionally the target actually answers.

When I do get through to the right person it's invariable a pleasant experience. They always make the time to talk with me, even if it's only for a few minutes. No one has ever been rude or told me to get lost, which I attribute to the genuine smile in my voice I perfected during many years of conducting phone interviews as a reporter.

See, I thought I had nothing to say but just spent 10 minutes typing up the week's highlights. It's just like I always told my students, people who've asked me about the craft of writing, and even other reporters: The sure-fire cure for writer's block is just to sit down and type. Before you know it you're saying something. It might not be profound, but inspiration has very little do with writing. It's mostly stringing one word after another until a message appears.