To contact the Public School system directly to let them know that you value Sports you can write them through this link.

If you live in Illinois and want to vote but don’t want to go to some horrible bureaucratic hellhole simply print of the form you can get here and send it in today.

Voting in primaries is especially important in states like Illinois and Texas where one party dominates, so if you share my interest in complaining about local politics please register.

That goes for: liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans, ninjas and pirates.

Also: socialists, libertarians, Unitarians, librarians and septuagenarians.

As I griped about here (link) the increase in fares out paces rises in transportation costs and inflation. While fares seem to be stable for the moment and rumors about the jump to three-dollar were overheated, I think that fare hikes are inevitable. The problem is if the CTA gets too expensive it will lose its utility as public transport. Hikes need to be avoided however possible. There are two ways for a company to slow down its thirst for cash flow it can address costs or revenue.  Because it is hard for me to speculate about the CTA’s costs I would like to focus on ways for the CTA generate new revenue without raising fares.

The CTA gets money from several sources the two principle ones are fares and government funding.  But, those are not the only sources of income the CTA also gets secondary income from advertisers retail tenants.  Any money coming from secondary sources is keeping the fares down or keeping money in tax payers pockets (if it can get through the bureaucracy in tact).

Examples of sources of ad revenue can be found in the advertisements on every bus and train most of them have ads both inside and outside of the vehicles.  In the stations themselves there are ads on walls.  Some stations such as the Davis stop on the Purple Line even have television screens showing ads.  There are also train stops that have businesses operating inside of train stations like the Dunkin Donuts in the Davis station.

Starting with the premise that any way of supporting the trains without increasing the tax or raising the fares is a good thing, I tried to think of ways the train system could improve and expand its secondary revenue generators. Tomorrow I am going to look at a few ways to do this by taking more coins, working more closely with smart phones, vending machines, and improving advertising.

James Farrell

What’s been said about James: “In his songs about love, loss, regret, sin and repentance, James expresses what we all think about in the shower but are too afraid to talk about once we’ve toweled off. He sings a simple message, in simple language, for a simple purpose: to get it off of his chest, and allow his listeners to do the same.”

His Site

Tom Fort

What’s been said about Tom (and his band Cobalt and Hired Guns):

“…Incredibly charming, poppy, youthful music…” –Roctober Magazine

“They remind me of a band that would be playing at a party in a movie that is more fun than a party that would happen in real life” -Mike Raspatello of Kingtello Productions
“If you’re looking for a cool twist to Americana music, SouthSide recommends checking out Cobalt & the Hired Guns at their next show.” -SouthSide of the Town, Fearless Radio Blog

His Site

He’s also been here on North and Clark

Emily Claire Palmer

What I am Saying about Emily Right Now: “Emily Palmer is a Chicago-based folky/indie singer/songwriter musician extraordinaire.” –Me, Right Now, Paraphrasing her website.

Her Site

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Like I said at the top of the blog I am going to try and bring this to you in a different way than we I have been bringing you content here in the past.  I am still waiting on a couple of details, but if you are in Chicago and you are intrigued by any of these musician’s or like North and Clark you might want to consider leaving December the 3^rd open.

I wish I could give you all the details right now but this is a collaboration with a bunch of different people and I need to make sure all the ducks are in a row before I make too many announcements.  If the suspense is killing you and you really want more details you can write me at northandclark@gmail.com.  Otherwise keep checking this space for more info.

Are Leaders Born or Made?

An age-old question! Certainly, leadership comes more naturally to some people, but leadership is definitely something we can learn. Great leaders are often great learners, and cultivate an aptitude for learning around them. Life often presents us with unexpected opportunity to take on a leadership role, in an emergency, for example. Or, to stand up for what’s right. That soldier who turned in the Abu Ghraib images, for example, found himself in an ethical dilemma, and listened to what his heart told him was the right, yet difficult thing to do. That took leadership, and courage.

What are the common traits of good Leaders?

Leadership is a fairly new discipline, and our understanding of leadership is evolving, as our needs for leaders evolve. We used to think of leaders more as warriors or generals. People who would tell us what to do and when. Fearlessness continues to be an important leadership trait, but other critical traits include curiosity, superior listening and observation skills. The ability to recognize and surround yourself with excellent talent becomes more important all the time, as is the ability to bring out the best in people and to create a sense of community in which people work together to shape a desired future. The authors of Good to Great found that the companies they studied that had been significantly more successful than other firms in their industries all had leaders who shared a unique combination of strong will and humility.

Who needs to think about Leadership?

Everyone. Your career success will be shaped by the leaders you work with. Choosing the right people to work for is one of the single most important decisions you can make. You can learn a lot from both good and bad leaders, but good leaders can give you the support, mentoring and connections that will accelerate your career. When you are in an organization, the choices you make on a daily basis impact those you work with, your organization, your clients, and your opportunities, so the more you learn about leadership, the better. In recent years, we saw the downfall of the nation’s largest, most respected accounting firm, largely due to critical choices made by two individuals.

How can we help those who lead us (particularly our bosses) be better managers and leaders?

Think strategically, and holistically. What really matters to your boss? What is he or she working to achieve? What really matters to the leadership of your organization? If you aren’t sure, find out. Then position yourself as a driver of those initiatives. Think ahead. With whatever task you have been assigned, what might thwart success? What simple detail could blow implementation? What are the potential obstacles to achieving what really matters to your boss? How can you creatively address them? Share what you see and want to do with your boss for buy-in, always first positioning any conversation with your current understanding of what is important to what really matters to him or her. What relationships within or outside the firm are critical to driving the achievement of what matters to your boss and the leadership of the organization? Cultivate those relationships, and keep your boss apprised of how what you are doing is forwarding the agreed-upon agenda. Realize that most of our leaders or managers are not ideal bosses, and may not have had ideal bosses, so you will be more successful and satisfied if you learn the art of managing up, and take it on as part of your job.

What are the most common mistakes made by people in positions of leadership?

Surrounding themselves with people who agree with them and won’t challenge them. Not listening. Not encouraging others to challenge assumptions. Lack of curiosity. Arrogance. Profound change happens more frequently now than in the past, so effective leadership now and into the future requires flexibility and ongoing learning. As long as you are arrogant, you can’t learn.

About the Author – Jackie Sloane writes the Executive Coach column for Executive Travel, and on leadership and communication for Chicago Examiner She coaches leaders to achieve significant results and greater well-being through how they engage others, navigate challenges, communicate, and cultivate relationships, and leads programs on Generative Communication.

My band and my website have a logo. Now, I just need something to put on my cape.

The show’s next Friday at the Elbo Room, we go on at midnight.  Hopefully the cops will let us finish this one.

This is a big deal, to me because this is my band.  We’re playing the best venue we have ever been booked at on the biggest night of the week. So, in honor of Hombre headlining the Friday show at the Elbo Room I am gonna feature the story of Tom and I, the first Hombres.

Tom and Casey

Tommy and I have been buddies since we were 12, but we haven’t always been band mates. Tom has always had bands, lessons and drive to play. I saw every incarnation of those bands.  I often tried to write songs and never finished them. Tom wrote hundreds of songs played by a number of bands. I wrote melodies and lyrics without knowing what key they were in or how they would ever get played. While Tom played his songs at school assemblies I sang mine in the shower, where most of them lived and died.

But, every once in a while I would take one of my songs to Tom, and that’s awesome for me. Tom is a top notch guitar player with plenty of his own songs, so when I took him my songs he not only translated my melodies into notes he also wrote hooks and transitions, changed verses and added bridges. He took tunes for humming and made them into playable music.

I always looked forward to taking Tom whatever new songs I had.  Hearing these songs with instrumentation translated them from musical sketches or tunes in my head to real songs. Arranging the songs was more than enough to make me happy for years.

Playing Gigs

Recently we have started picking up enough collaborators to have a proper band.  With a committed drummer and bassist (Amanda and Cool Keith) our band finally has the muscle and sound to gig out.  A rhythm section in a song that always wanted to make you dance but never could is water in the desert. Songs without a rhythm section need an audiences attention songs with a good rhythm section demand it. All of the sudden the songs started to bloom.

We have started playing a smattering of small gigs. Then two weeks Tom used his credibility as a member of Cobalt and the Hired Guns to get us this gig at the Elbo Room.  Its a big enough gig that we called in an extra Amanda to play her horn for us.

So, If you want to see the Hombres play the biggest gig we’ve ever had come out to the Elbo Room Friday the 23rd.  Its a show a decade in the making.

In today’s post IJ talks about playing, writing, and moving to the big city.  We did this interview and a few minutes and later I shot video of him playing some of his songs. He’s an animated interview and an agreable sort.  The audio is worth checking out just to her his Carolina twang.

I had the pleasure of seeing IJ play to his very dedicated fan base at the Tonic Room on Halsted last night and he is a treat to see live. You can check him out on his website.

IJ Quinn is a Chicago based songwriter with the range to sing Michael Jackson and the writing chops to sell his songs to major recording artists.  I heard IJ play at Schuba’s and I knew I wanted to get this man on the blog.  After doing the interview IJ was kind enough to shoot a live recording for the blog.  We took this video a few days ago in my apartment, I hope you liked it.

Our full interview will be available tomorrow.  If you want to check out IJ’s great studio recordings you can check out his website.