Green is today's media darling. Newspaper headlines and magazine covers trumpet the new environmentalism. Hollywood stars compete over the earnestness of their environmental sentiments. Green-minded business leaders are newly minted pop idols. The state of the environment is the talk of the town.

The move from program ratings to commercial ratings for national TV is eagerly awaited and long overdue. Yes, there are questions about how, exactly, commercial ratings will be calculated minute-by-minute.

Three years ago I couldn't have imagined working from home and balancing dad duties. My wife travels a lot for her job, so it's important that I'm home to raise our kids. As an architect, I can telecommute to projects throughout the world. With so many ad-supported Web conferencing services out there, I can share my work with colleagues at a fraction of the cost of travel. I have most of my informal meetings in the virtual office we built as an extension of our company's intranet site. It's more secure than trying to convene in public virtual spaces like …

Let me engage you for a minute. You've made it this far and you're still going. Stick around for just a bit longer. Honestly, I know you'll stick around. You're likely an advertising professional proactively seeking information about the industry that will make you better at your job. You probably stay abreast of the news, educate yourself about various potential opportunities, and listen to what pundits have to say in the hopes it will serve as a catalyst for your own ideas.

In some ways, people remain remarkably predictable. Even in the midst of a fast-changing technology and marketing environment, we respond the same way we always have to love, passion, fear and greed. As communications professionals, concerned with changing (or reinforcing) purchasing behavior, we need to think about how to engage that love and passion and fear and greed. That job hasn't changed.

It's august and that means we are on the eve of the first trial of Ben Silverman, the spark plug tapped by NBC chairman Jeff Zucker to fire up his sputtering peacock network. The new fall TV season shall soon arrive, and although Ben's predecessor, Kevin Reilly, was responsible for laying out the prime-time schedule, Ben's response to the way it plays will be closely watched.

Five months into my new gig, I've figured out something it would have been nice to know before hanging out my shingle: I'm a lousy consultant. Oh, it's not that I don't network with the best of them. I'm actually finding that part of the job not nearly as loathsome as I always feared. (Open plug for LinkedIn: It helps considerably.) And I'm told I give good deck, so mark off "PowerPoint Princess" on the Basic Consultant Qualifications checklist. Meetings at coffee shops? Check. Listening skills? Working on those. (Hey, at least I'm honest.)

In a recent Saturday afternoon, hundreds of YouTube aficionados assembled in New York City's Washington Square Park, for a first group "meetup," or chance to rub elbows in real time.

The next time you glance at an ad in a mall or train station, don't be surprised if it seems like the ad is returning the favor.

With soap opera ratings on the decline, the networks are trying all sorts of tactics to increase viewership.