Salmon Khan photo by Robyn Twomey

Last night after watching the final Oprah show (at least until the end of her non-compete with her syndicator, which ends in 2012), I read a terrific profile in BusinessWeek about Salmon Khan, “Salman Khan: The Messiah of Math,” which seemed to me to be the perfect subject for Oprah. It is a great story about a revolution that is underway in how to teach in the 21st Century — and how to utilize some of the capabilities of technology in the classroom.

I won’t get into all the specifics — I encourage you to read the article — but basically Khan accidentally created a nonprofit that makes short 10-minute lessons available for free online. After a few years of working on it, there are 2,500 or so lessons that have been viewed a combined 52 million times. Some forward-thinking schools are now integrating the lessons into their classes and are seeing amazing results. One school told BusinessWeek that test scores increased an average of 70 percent.

But what I like the most was the description of one teacher who had “flipped the classroom.” Instead of sending the kids home to do the work and coming to school for the lecture, they are having the students consume the lecture at home and then come into class to do the work. What a concept! It gives the teacher the ability to participate and intervene as the students work on solutions. It is so much more aligned with how the world really works!

In the video below, Khan goes into more detail about flipping the classroom. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have the U.S. classroom better reflect how the work world and the world in general really operate. I am very concerned that our schools are not preparing students for the type of environment they will have to navigate when they graduate.

We don’t passively listen as someone commands. That is a 1950s mentality. We participate. We work in teams — usually dispersed geographically. We share and collaborate. The nature of the work is no longer hierarchical as it was less than a decade ago — ideas come from everywhere. Our schools must reflect these changes.

My favorite Bruce Springsteen story is from that Red Rocks show when Bruce was on tour supporting The River. How cool is the age we are living in when you can type “Springsteen Red Rocks 1981″ into Google and you can find out the show was on August 16, 1981 and even get the set list from the show?

It was festival seating, so my buddy, Chris Buck and I went early in the morning to get great seats — right in the middle about 15 rows back. So we are bored stiff come mid-afternoon. It would have been a good idea to bring something to do, but we brought nothing. And then it starts to rain.

You gotta be kidding me!

But, just as I was beginning to come to grips with what a disaster this afternoon was going to be, out onto the stage comes the ENTIRE band completely unannounced. They just come walking out for a sound check.

First song — Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”

If we had smartphones and knew how to text in 1981, we would be texting everyone we knew. It was fantastic. Screw the sound check, they sounded great. Chris shot a photo that he gave me for Christmas that year (seeing a continuous theme of Bruce for Christmas? LOL) and I still have it somewhere.

So as I was starting to watch this Houston house cut bootleg DVD I was just incredibly jealous that those at the Houston show had the surprise of having their show captured on video for all time. How great is that? Here’s what the Houston Chronicle wrote a few months ago:

The key carrot for many locals will be the inclusion of Thrill Hill Vault Houston ‘ 78 Bootleg: House Cut, a concert recording from The Summit on Dec. 8, 1978.

Let’s get one very faint quibble out of the way first. Today’s standards for filming a concert differ greatly from those in 1978, so the multicamera film lacks some of the visual pop we’ve come to expect. There are moments when the lights go down that the screen goes completely black. Quibble concluded, as it really doesn’t matter because this concert was volcanic.

Obviously nothing could compare to being there, but those in attendance are likely to be goosed seeing Springsteen and the E Street Band slashing through these 26 songs again (it seems some between-song footage has been excised as the DVD’s three hours runs much shorter than the four-plus-hour estimates fans have recalled). There’s little point in singling out songs because the performance was relentlessly frenzied (though Streets of Fire is fittingly incendiary). Was the show better than others from the tour? Who knows, but it’s an awesome marriage of brawn and brain in a single rock concert.

Dale Adamson’s Chronicle review is reprinted inside the spiral notebook that houses the set. Proof that faster isn’t necessarily better in this line of work, the poor guy had to split nine songs early to file his story. So he caught a great Because the Night and missed Backstreets, Rosalita, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and Born to Run, among others. (Imagine trying to summarize a baseball game after six innings.)

Okay, enough with the whining about the production quality. Everyone now is more accustomed to watching videos shot on cell phones, so I think they’ll be able to get over the crappy lighting.

Anyway, one of the pearls that Dale Adamson pointed out in his original 1978 review of the show was Because the Night. Check it…

The documentary that accompanies the box set tells a great story about this song. During the recording of Darkness on the Edge of Town, engineer/producer Jimmy Iovine (now of American Idol fame) was splitting time between Bruce and the Patti Smith Group, which was working on Easter in the studio next door. When Bruce decided it didn’t fit on his album, Iovine gave Smith a tape of the song. She recast it, and it was included on Easter, becoming the first single release from that album. I’m not sure what came first, Patti Smith’s release of the song or the Houston show.

Looking forward to seeing Bruce when he tours again. In the meantime, I have lots more to dig into in this box set.

Now that disclosure is complete, I have a simple question resulting from today’s Groupon deal for Dallas/Fort Worth. For $8 you can purchase a shampoo and haircut at Great Clips. Great deal — unless you consider that Great Clips has an ongoing and very aggressive coupon strategy. A few times each month I can expect to receive a coupon for Great Clips in the mail, ranging from $7 to $9 for a haircut.

So why would someone (as of this moment Groupon is reporting 1,600 people have purchased) pay up front to basically get the same deal they would otherwise receive in the mail?

Interesting psychology at play, I suspect. The sense of urgency, which is amplified by the ticking clock that shows how much time is left down to the second, is clearly a factor. The sense of “it has to be a great deal or everyone else wouldn’t be doing it” also contributes, I suppose.

I’d love to hear from the marketers who have insight into what prompts a person’s buying decision in these situations. All the factors seem to align closely with what you see on the TV shopping channels. Great image, sense of value, urgency, etc.

A few weeks ago I was excited to purchase a $25 certificate to Humperdink’s for $10. I was especially excited about the prospect of going to the Humperdink’s in Arlington before a Ranger’s game. That thought is what prompted me to click and buy.

But then the following day I saw a coupon in the Dallas Morning News for a free entree with the purchase of an entree at Humperdink’s. So I shelled out money upfront for what amounted to the same deal I could get without paying anything. Doh!

If you don’t consider the time value of money, I don’t suppose that’s such a big deal, but the fact that consumers are being asked to fork over their dough for the promise of something in the future is significant. That money that you are spending with only a certificate in return is gone. All the other things you could have done with that money between the time you spend it and use the certificate are also gone. That is your opportunity cost.

Okay, before I get into a big economics discussion, I’ll wrap this up.

From now on, I only check Groupon for deals I never see anywhere else. I recently bought a Groupon for Feedstore Bar B Que, which is a terrific tiny local place in Southlake that never advertises. Perfect. But no more paying up front for deals I can get for free.

So in Howard’s absence, I offer this video that has never been more appropriate than this coming Monday.

I won’t be among the many who bash Howard for taking additional time off. He is the best thing on radio and should do whatever he feels will make it possible to keep delivering great entertainment. Three days of the Stern show each week is better than a year’s worth of any other show currently on radio.

It would also be great if this recording encourages people to consider participating in a CPR class. You never know when you might need it.

For instance, the Facebook advertising tool tells you there are 6.8 million Texans age 18 and older on Facebook,  1,216,000 are in Houston and 1,080,820 are in Dallas. If you take just the English speakers, the number of Texans goes down to 6.5 million. And then you get to “likes and interests,” where it gets really interesting. I’ve done some work for clients in pet care, so I clicked on “dogs.” There are 27,200 Texans over 18 on Facebook who are interested in dogs, 4,600 of whom are in Dallas. Add “puppies” and the number in Dallas goes up to 6,640.

So instead of creating an ad that goes out to all sorts of people who don’t care about your product or service, you could specifically target people in your town who care deeply about what you have to offer them.

Here is a great presentation from Clara Shih, author, entrepreneur and director, Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy at Salesforce.com, speaking to a class at Stanford University on this topic. I especially appreciated the portion of the presentation that begins at 15:38 in which she describes how someone who attended an earlier talk actually created a Facebook ad specifically targeting just her that only she would be able to see.

So this afternoon I created a Facebook ad for my Media Interview Skills Training service, targeting just people in Texas who have a college degree, are over 25 and are interested in public relations. So just four screens and I was down to a marginally specific population of 4,400 people. But I feel fairly confident that these are the people who would influence the selection of a media trainer. We’ll see how that goes.

Since GoDaddy.com hosts my Web site, I was able to use a $50 credit offered by them for the test, so it is free at least to start with.

But I also wanted to check the laser like capabilities of Facebook advertising. So I created an ad targeting just the 20 people on Facebook who indicated they work at Schipul – The Web Marketing Company, which is one of my clients. The content of the ad is simple — I appreciate the Schipul team and would love it if you became a fan of my company’s Facebook page.

The ability to target the employees of a specific company is remarkable. A few additional screens would make it possible for an IT service provider to specifically target the IT decision makers of each of the companies on their list of prospects. And since the ads are applicable to that specific person or group, they are not considered spam — especially if the content is meaty.

This is very cool stuff and I strongly recommend tinkering around with it. I will let you know what I learn through my trials and anticipate helping clients think through how this can help in their marketing efforts as well.

What does Bruce Springsteen have to do with public relations? Absolutely nothing, except that being able to go to the occasional concert is one of the rewards for working hard and building a small PR practice.

As entrepreneurs, some of us like to spout about the flexibility that our independent businesses allow, but we can be trapped by the smallness of our companies and find it hard to get away. I have fallen into that trap in the past, but I work hard to enjoy the fruits of my hard work, too.

Springsteen is no fruit, mind you, but his music is one of my vices. One of my first assignments as a reporter at the Loveland High School newspaper (the now politically incorrect “Redskin Reporter”) was to review The River when it came out. I have that clipping somewhere, but I’m not sure where. I didn’t give it a great review because I thought the pop sound of some of his songs were a bit of a sell-out.

That year I went to two of his concerts, seeing him at McNichols Arena in Denver and later sleeping out at Red Rocks to get good seats. My buddy Chris Buck and I — along with a couple thousand other whackos — were stunned when the whole band came out at about 3:30 in the afternoon, which was five hours before show time, to do a sound check. It was raining, but nobody cared a bit. They played four songs, ending with Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Here Comes Who’ll Stop the Rain.” It was one of those moments that you think at the time you’ll remember forever and here it is nearly 30 years later and I REALLY DO STILL REMEMBER IT!

So I am happy to share the Sunday night Arpil 5 show I enjoyed at Frank Erwin Center in Austin with you. The set list shows 27 songs, which would have been amazing, but it is wrong because as the band was wrapping up their final jubilant number, Bruce spotted someone holding up a sign with a request, grabbed it and ran through one final classic — Glory Days — from Born in the USA.

If you really enjoy The Boss and would like to get a sense of what the show was like, here is a link to almost all the songs played in order on my blip.fm playlist. If this is the first time you’ve heard of blip.fm, it is a great social network built around sharing songs legally. It is what the music industry should have thought to do about 10 years ago. There might still be a music industry if they had figured it out.

To give you a feel for the show, here is a brief video uploaded from the road. There are plenty of unauthorized videos on YouTube as well, but I don’t want to get a cease and desist letter, so I’m not posting them.