"The future belongs to those who take the present for granted."

So says Clay Shirky in the epilogue to his classic book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, a book full of perfect lessons like this one.

With economic recovery around the corner, many in radio are holding their collective breath, hoping that advertising demand will blossom, that rates will rise, that PPM will open new advertiser vistas, that nobody reminds us how much money we wasted fretting over HD (don't say you weren't warned), that longstanding morning shows won't drop dead from old age, that "reach" will matter as much in the cost-per-click world of 2010 as it did in the cost-per-thousand world of 2000.

Sure, we're dancing the the digital diva, you may say, but where's the real money?  Where's the money we're due because of who we are?  Where's that pot of gold under the rainbow?

There's a joke about the mega-broadcaster who is down to one employee, and that's the guard outside the door containing the laptop which drives every format on every station in every m