In the midst of yet another crisis, James T. Kirk, by now an Admiral but still in command of the USS Enterprise, calmly counseled his young Lieutenant, "You've got to know how a Starship works." He then transmitted a secret code to the bad guy's ship which lowered his shields. Then he shot him with photon torpedoes and escaped danger, yet again. Even before this dramatic, cinematic lesson, I liked to know how things work, and so I have a fairly eclectic reading list. But in reviewing some information on the current economic situation I wasn't quite prepared for the …

I was sad to read that Lorenzo Charles died last week. Remember him? Back in '83, it was Lorenzo Charles who slammed Dereck Whittenburg's air ball in the last second of the NCAA finals to win the championship for North Carolina State. How do you win against the big guy, the favorite, when the odds are stacked against you and the competition just keeps heating up? Here are my principles for how to compete in an increasingly complex world:

Two significant series -- one with a giant following among science-fiction fans, the other a multiple Emmy Award winner -- transition to new networks this month, providing industry observers of every stripe with interesting opportunities to discover if greater creative freedom and fewer content restrictions do indeed make scripted drama more compelling, especially for adult viewers.

Customized deliverability of ads that better target specific consumer segments is the holy grail for advertisers. It enables advertisers to eliminate message waste and assists the consumer by offering messages that have greater relevancy and are more interesting to the viewer. This week we delve a bit further into those terms that describe the new wave of addressable advertising opportunities made possible via the STB.

Last night's TV ratings: probably the easiest and most common story for a media reporter to write. The piece will say that a particular show had XX million viewers, which beat out another show and was either up or down from the week before. We are so conditioned to seeing these stories that we rarely stop to ask what it all means and if it makes sense to cover TV viewing like it was still 1986.

Before we all get cranky at the end of this piece, let's understand that I'm asking the question, not providing the answer. Or at least the definitive answer. In fact, I'm guessing that the answer to "What's the meaning of Facebook?" hasn't been made clear yet to any of us, because even Facebook doesn't know.

Given the high caliber of so many scripted drama series on basic cable these days, it may be asking too much for the press to show big love for VH1's "Single Ladies" - a simple show that seeks only to entertain -- but how about a little "like"?

tSTB data, with its larger footprint and second by second capability, holds great opportunity for those advertisers who want to better target specific consumer groups and for consumers who tire of ad messages that are irrelevant and do not apply to them. Currently, addressable advertising takes on many forms and has many custom approaches, making standardization of metrics difficult in the short term. But the hope is that there will be an industry effort focused on creating metrics and some standardize-able elements for measuring and comparing addressable advertising campaigns.

So far June has been a month full of industry conferences, starting with Tablet Revolution, followed by Mitch Oscar's MPG Collaborative Alliance, Video, Mobile and Social Media OMMAs, the ARF and most recently, the CTAM Insights. In each meeting, the focus and future of the media landscape was discussed, each from a slightly different perspective and projecting often wildly divergent results.

I enjoy headlines more than most. I appreciate the art of the headline, the (sometimes) drama, and the (often) silliness that provides a break in the day. A good headline should be informative, quickly, whether introducing the news or commercial content -- of which advertising is one form.