Category: ramblings

On the first 4 months of owning a newspaper

It's been about four months since I became owner and publisher of my community's local print newspaper. In the spirit of transparency and working out in the open, we recently shared our first report to the community about our operations, health and future plans. I also geeked out a bit with a blog post on some of the tools and technology we're using to run the paper.

I'd like to say a little more about what it's been like for me personally.

To sum it up: I'm loving it!

As I said when announcing this adventure, "this is a thrilling opportunity to continue exploring my interest in the questions of where and how people get their information, and what informs the decisions they make about their lives, values and communities." It has been exactly that. From the people involved to the details of getting the paper out the door each week to the writing, editing and publisher decision-making processes to the bigger questions of our role in the community and how best to meet people's information needs, it's all been thrilling.

One thing that's surprised me a bit is how much love there is for the Western Wayne News newspaper.

I knew that our team and the paper's previous owners Brenda and Jim had built a lot of goodwill in the community over the years. And I knew that the paper had a loyal readership that takes the paper very seriously. But I had no idea just how strongly people feel about the paper as an important part of their lives! They call us just to say how much they like the paper. They write the nicest notes to accompany their renewal payments. If it doesn't show up in their mail, they call us right away. They fawn over stories. They notice little changes. They ask about our health and growth, and wonder about ways they can help get the word out. Not just once in a while..almost every day. It's amazing and humbling.

(I will admit that after several years in my journalism degree program of studying the declining public appreciation for the value of journalism and local news, I may have brought some cynicism with me about this. I was ready to work hard to make the basic case for the existence of a local newspaper and quality news reporting. But so far, I haven't had to; people seem to get it. There are a lot of things contributing to this and I'm sure there are still many folks out there who might benefit from some persuasion in that regard, but it's been a relief and a wonder to feel like I'm swimming with the current instead of fighting against it.)

The weirdest part of the whole experience is when I'm talking to someone or wandering around town and I see or think of something that might be interesting, useful or newsworthy to the community, and have the thought "somebody should get the word out about that." Then, I realize that the "somebody" is probably us. 😃 It's also been surreal to be at this particular moment in the history of our local news ecosystem, where the daily Gannett paper that I have read, contributed to, analyzed, criticized (reminder to self: buy Jason, Bill and others a beer soon) and closely followed for so many years has effectively paused its news coverage indefinitely. Barely a day goes by without a call from someone lamenting its decline and subscribing to our paper to try to fill that space.

A few people have asked me about how much of an investment this new venture has been. I think the question behind their question is about the sustainability of newspaper ownership, both financially and personally. A few things about that:

I'm not sharing the price I paid for the newspaper as that gets into parts of the story that aren't mine alone to tell. I was told that I paid more than "the market" might strictly suggest this particular newspaper is worth. If so, I did that because after a significant amount of due diligence work, I felt confident in the paper's value, its importance to the community and the opportunities it presented as a foundation for growth over time. Not just growth in revenue, but growth as a hub for community health and civic engagement, To me, as someone who cares deeply about the future of this place, that is worth a lot.

Is it profitable?

If you look at the numbers we shared in the 2022 Q4 community report, you'll see that at a basic level we have more income than expenses. Yay, right? For now, this is possible because I'm paying myself the lowest wage of any of our regular employees, and because our employees, contractors and contributors work incredibly hard for the wages they are paid. I have already made some progress on raising compensation, with plans to further increase that over time in a way that's sustainable for all of us. Beyond that, the purchase price financing terms also affect what happens to any remaining profit, at least for a while. So a snapshot of one quarter indicates that we're in a good place, but there are a lot of other factors that will determine if we can be profitable in the longer term.

Have there been challenging parts?

Oh yes. I enjoy working with my colleagues but going from a fully distributed/remote work life to one that involves an hour of commuting each day has been a big change. Our newspaper production process alone is currently spread across all 7 days of the week, let alone all of the other business management and growth tasks I'm handling, so I've given up a fair amount of family and personal time. As much as I feel at home managing a business and a team, there are the stresses and worries that come with that. There are days when I just want to get one particular thing done and instead end up working on a plumbing or power or rodent issue. And so on. But, I'm fortunate that these are mostly all challenges of my own choosing, and that I do not have to tackle them alone.

Speaking of, there's a lot of gratitude to express:

To the team at the paper that I get to work with every day, who have navigated a time of transition and uncertainty by doing their best to welcome me with kindness, embraced the opportunity to try new things, and made sure I know what their work and the paper as a whole mean to its readers and subscribers. To the long-time readers of the paper for being open to the idea that new ownership could actually work out okay. To Brenda McLane for all of the time she spent making sure this "succession" and transition went smoothly, and continuing to cheer us on after. To my family for being understanding and flexible as I figured out a new schedule, routine and work life, and for being excited for me at every step of the way. To my friends and wider community for cheering me on and offering their support. And to the many others who have shared a kind word. Thank you all.

Social Contract

As we start the new year, a big question on my mind is: what will become of our relationships with people we don't know, people who aren't like us?

It's tempting to feel like the social contracts in place to ensure we aren't blatantly reckless with each other's lives, health or humanity have started to untangle just recently. But I suppose that would be my privilege talking.

If I get a little too bummed that it feels like people are no longer bothering to balance their self-interests with the greater good, I try to remember that Black people, people of color, women, poor people and many other populations have been affected by of some version of that imbalance for generations, and have often suffered greatly because of it.

Still, there's nothing like being headed toward a preventable year three of a pandemic to crystalize the ways  in which so many people seem to be saying an active "screw you" to any notion of addressing a public health crisis through even minimal personal sacrifice. And I too often feel a great big "screw you back" welling up inside of me in response, as much as I wish it weren't so.

I'm working on that, but I'm not always sure if working on it means embracing that energy and letting it inspire me to action, or suppressing it in favor of more diplomatic responses. (You know, for the greater good.)

I guess these are all versions of the questions I asked in June 2020:

  • How can we get people to care about and act on problems that don’t seem to immediately or directly affect them?
  • How can we get people to care about making the distinction between what’s verifiably true and what’s not?
  • How do we make change happen fast enough to matter?
  • What should I do?

There is a great deal of good in the world, and a great deal of good in my own life. I have so much to be thankful for.

But I used to believe that People are, on the whole, good and wanting good things for each other. Now I'm not so sure, and I don't like that uncertainty. It feels like it could poison the future. My future.

I'd like to raise my daughter with an optimistic outlook about the nature of humanity, but I may need to scale that back a bit. An optimistic outlook about the good she can create in her own life and for those around her? An optimistic outlook about next week's dinner menu?

Happy New Year.

Helping kids learn media literacy

I've come to accept in the course of my media and political work, and in pursuing my journalism degree, that getting adults to examine or improve the way they encounter news, journalism and other media is a long, slow process, when it's even possible at all. Indeed, reversing and repairing some of the trends we've seen in recent years around the spread of misinformation, the vilification of journalists and the outright denial of science and facts may take generations.

Helping young people learn media literacy while they are still forming their media consumption habits, then, feels especially important. I'm no expert on this subject, but now I at least have a few years of direct experience as a parent trying to help our daughter develop and sharpen her own media literacy skills. Here are some experiments, tools and tactics I've found helpful along the way:

Talking about the media we encounter

Whether it's on a walk, drive, bike ride or just out to check the mail, I've tried to talk with my daughter about what she is seeing and hearing.

From an early age when she would excitedly open up the mailbox and find that booklet of coupons and advertisements from local businesses, we labeled those mailers "opportunities" and talked through what those businesses wanted us to do in looking through their ads, along with the pros and cons of us actually doing those things.

We'd point out billboards and talk through the process that led to some realtor's face or some grand sale being proclaimed to passers-by day and night.

At stores we'd point out the ways that packaging was designed to attract and compel a purchase, and how that could sometimes differ from the reality that would unfold after the purchase. We also talk about store and business names and what feelings or ideas they are trying to invoke in someone looking at them. What is a Dollar Store or a Party City and why did they call it that?

We don't have much exposure to TV ads at home given our use of streaming services, but when traveling we talk through the ads on hotel TVs and what they are offering, and why they use the approach they do.

Now, when my daughter encounters signs, packaging and advertisements, she's on the lookout for the motive behind the message, and she does a surprisingly good job of unpacking what's really happening.

Continue reading "Helping kids learn media literacy" →

Trust is key to successful distributed work

You can't successfully operate in a distributed/remote work model unless your organization is built on trust.

So many teams and companies are wrestling with questions around if and how to continue some version of distributed/remote work, now that public health concerns may not require it any longer.

Unfortunately, these conversations often focus on the mechanics of distributed work or in-person/distributed hybrid models: how many days per week, schedules, locations, finances, technology tools and more.

These are important considerations, but without a culture of trust to start, it's like choosing the color of a bicycle that has no wheels.

Managers and supervisors need to trust the people they manage and supervise. If you don’t trust that your people are there to do their best for the success of the organization, and to figure out a way of working that fits their needs and their role or team's needs, no amount of remote work tools or tips are going to help. If you don't empower and enable people to thrive in their work, and acknowledge them when they do, a distributed work model will lead to poor performance, isolation, resentment and worse. (Tip: this is also true in in-person work environments.)

Individual contributors who work together need to trust each other. If you don't trust that your co-worker is doing their best to balance the long-term interests of the organization and their role with their own health and wellness, no amount of communication tools or stand-up meetings is going to help. If you can't be gracious and generous with your co-workers around flexible scheduling, stepping away or taking time off when they need to, offering support and encouragement, and expecting all of that for yourself as well, then a distributed work model will bring out the worst in your professional interactions and relationships.

Is it okay to "trust but verify"? Is it okay to have systems of check-ins and measurement and reviews? Sure! But these should be built on the assumption that the people being verified, checked-in on, measured and reviewed are doing their best to fulfill the goals of their position in the context of everything else going on in the organization and in their personal lives. Instead of being about punishing or scolding, they should focus on offering guidance, direction, constructive feedback, support and encouragement — again, trusting that people are there to do their best work for the long run, and helping them get there.

What if you don't have that trust? What if the people in your organization assume the worst about each other's intentions? What if you can't possibly imagine letting a co-worker decide for themselves, in consultation with their team and stakeholders, what work environment, practices, schedule, tools and timelines make the most sense given everything you're trying to accomplish together? Then there's no way you're going to be able to thrive as a distributed team, or maybe at all, until that trust is repaired or rebuilt.

Can a team work effectively in a distributed model without trust? Sure, for a while. But it comes at the expense of mental health, job satisfaction, a sense of ownership, productivity and long-term engagement. The work will eventually suffer, the people will eventually suffer, things will break. This is not the way to build or grow an organization. (Tip: this is also true in in-person work environments.)

Successful distributed work requires trust. Without it, everything else may be a waste of time.

Disclaimers, notes and further reading:

  • No, I'm not saying that in-person organizations are inherently operating without trust. Nor am I saying that the proper alternative to distributed-without-trust is in-person-without-trust. So many in-person organizations have come to equate "at your desk looking busy" with "high performing hard worker" and we need to unlearn those unhealthy models about what trust in the workplace looks like.
  • If the people you've hired don't seem trustworthy, then you may have hired the wrong people, but it's more likely that you or someone else set a bad example that everyone else is just following. Figuring out what can be salvaged is hard work, but it's essential. Abbie Moore has a great article on how to get started rebuilding trust.
  • One way you can build trust is by frequently delegating reversible and/or inconsequential decisions.
  • I personally don't think hybrid models — some people colocated in an office, some people remote — work well or are sustainable.
  • Power works differently in a distributed organization. Lean in to those differences.
  • You can't have real trust without transparency. Default to having everything happen out in the open, including how you make decisions, handle conflicts, learn from mistakes, document progress. If it's not uncomfortable, you're probably not being open enough.

Photo by Belinda Fewings

A new venture, WP Lookout

A few months ago I had an idea for a new tool and service that I thought could be useful to WordPress developers and agencies who manage lots of WordPress sites, but who can't or don't want to go all in on automatic updates. After spending some time thinking through the details and researching what was already out there, I decided to go ahead and build it.

I started writing code and building features on July 1. A month later in early August I launched the first version to a production environment, and now I'm starting to tell people about it.

Please, allow me to introduce WP Lookout.

I've already written about why I think this service fills in some important gaps in the WordPress ecosystem so I won't say a lot more about that here. If you're someone who has worked with keeping multiple WordPress sites up to date and secure, hopefully you see the potential benefit. And there are a lot more features I'm excited to be working on.

Even if you don't travel in those circles, perhaps you'll identify with this sentiment: we have all of these things in our lives running software that someone else has written (routers, computers, apps on our phones, the navigation systems in our cars, the firmware on our TVs), and we're supposed to keep them up to date with the latest versions, usually in the name of speed and security. But often that turns into a part time job of logging in to those devices, finding the settings screen where updates are displayed, and trying to understand what's changed and how much it matters. Automatic background updates are helping in some cases. But wouldn't it be nice if these devices and tools could come to us and tell us when they're ready for an update, and what exactly has changed? So, WP Lookout is set to do that for at least one small corner of the Internet.

It's been a while since I've set out to launch and grow a new business from nothing. It's thrilling to again be thinking through architecture, strategy, business model, marketing, finances, legal paperwork, scaling, innovation and all the other pieces that go along with trying to make something thrive for the long term. It's also vulnerable to be putting something out into the world and wondering how it will be received, or if anyone will care.

I'm hopeful that good things are ahead. Regardless, I'm proud of what I've done so far. I've learned a lot along the way — about building a SaaS ("software as a service") business, about how awesome developing with Laravel is (I'll write more about that soon on my tech blog) and about what solutions people who manage multiple WordPress sites might or might not be looking for to make their lives easier.

After I'm a bit further along I'll share more details and updates. In the meantime, please check out WP Lookout.

World on fire

As I read about and watch the events unfolding around us in recent months I find that I have more questions than answers, and unfortunately more despair and anger than I do hope or clarity.

I'll get to the questions in a moment. First, the things I know:

Black Lives Matter. The open wounds of slavery and racism upon which so much of modern U.S. society was founded and continues to operate are far from universally acknowledged or understood, let alone healed. Finding ways to pursue justice for black people and people of color everywhere is one of the greatest and most important challenges of our era. The ongoing hate, oppression, discrimination, aggression, violence and death that is wrought by us upon our fellow humans because of the color of their skin is an atrocity, an outrage and an embarrassment to anyone who would think us any kind of moral model in the world. It demands our greatest care, attention and action. As white people, it demands our solidarity, our self-examination, our hard work, our listening, our discomfort. I fully support the protests and other direct action happening around the world in the name of big changes and in pursuit of justice.

Continue reading "World on fire" →

Does your organization need help figuring out remote work?

If your business or organization has been struggling through the unexpected shift to emergency remote/distributed work, and now wants to step back and build a distributed work culture that actually thrives, I'd like to help.

How does accountability and management happen in a remote workplace? How do we avoid Zoom meeting burnout? What does a productive home office setup look like? What cultural shifts are needed? What collaboration tools and software might be most helpful? How do we make decisions quickly when we're not in the same place?

If your leadership is asking these or similar questions, I can help you find some answers.

There are now a ton of great articles, podcasts, interviews and other resources out there about the mechanics of remote work. For some organizational leaders, that might be enough to get you started. For others, you may benefit from a collaborative, customized process to look at your particular organizational culture and structure, and develop a plan for shifting into sustainable distributed/remote work.

So I'm beginning to offer just that as a paid consulting service. Through conversations, workshops, assessments and other forms of engagement, I'm helping organizations move past the emergency reaction phase and into a long-term distributed/remote work setup that works for everyone.

Visit Distributed.Coach To Learn More

I'm passionate about the benefits — to individuals, organizations and society as a whole — of the distributed work model. I also enjoy helping organizations think about and plan for change. I've built and led fully distributed teams, and I've also built and led organizations where everyone came in to the same office to work together. I’ve seen both models up close, and I know from experience what works and what doesn’t. Especially as the implications of COVID-19 have forced so many organizations to rethink their operations, but even prior to that, I have wanted to contribute to this global shift in how we work.

If you are a part of an organization that would benefit from my expertise, or know someone who is, learn more and get in touch at Distributed.Coach.

Helping out at the local newspaper

I'm excited to be able to say a bit more about one of the ways I've been spending time professionally in recent months. Since January, I've been consulting with the folks at Hometown Media Group, the parent company of two weekly newspapers here in Wayne County, Indiana, as their Digital Editor to help them update, streamline and manage their expanding digital offerings.

It's been a really fun and challenging application of my longtime interests in news media, technology, small business and community building. It's been rewarding to bring to bear my skills and experience previously helping national and global publishers, now for the benefit of reporters covering the place where I live. It's been a geeky delight to help them shore up their technical foundations with the tools and best practices that I've used, implemented or created elsewhere. And I love being a part of the strategy conversations around how and where people get their news in our region, and what kinds of improvements will serve readers and subscribers best.

All of this work is a part of answering that recurring question around what I can contribute to the field of journalism. I'm so glad for this experience along the way.

And although the ground-shaking that has come with the COVID-19 pandemic makes a lot of the future uncertain for newspapers (and everyone), it's also highlighted the essential nature of local news with high standards for factual reporting. We have some neat projects and updates in the works for the weeks and months ahead to honor that responsibility, so I'm looking forward to helping them out for as long as I can be useful.

At some point down the road I'll look at sharing more about some of the technical work I've done here that might benefit other newspapers working on improving their online publishing efforts.

If you're living in or connected to this part of Indiana, I hope you'll consider buying a subscription and supporting local journalism. Their prices are incredibly affordable, but more importantly the staff and ownership of Hometown Media Group are doing impressive work, especially these days when advertisers are especially cautious and the breaking news is truly nonstop. They care deeply about the community and the people they serve, and would appreciate your business if you're able.

Running

I should go. I should do it.

I hate running. It’s stupid and hard.

Maybe there are other ways? Lifestyle changes, eating better, etc?

I could just do a long, invigorating walk in the park tomorrow instead.

But I said I was running. I told everyone I was going for a run.

I should go.

Maybe my running clothes are all dirty, I’ll probably need to do laundry first.

Oh. Nope, there’s a clean set.

What have I eaten today? Maybe I need more digesting time. Or actually, maybe it’s been so long that I’m going to be too hungry. Maybe after the next meal, then.

Or I could just go.

I need to cross it off the list. I’ll ostensibly feel good if I do it. Maybe.

Fine, I’ll go.

Continue reading "Running" →

Why are you giving social media companies free marketing?

Pretend you are the Director of Marketing for a business or organization. A tech company approaches you and they ask if they can put their logo on all of your promotional materials. All they want is a little space in the corner of each brochure, billboard, business card, television spot and newspaper ad you pay to produce. Preferably in color. But they can’t pay you for it. They need you to do this for them as a favor, for free.

What would you say?

If you wouldn’t take that deal, why in the world would you give Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media company free advertising space on your real-world promotional efforts?

If you get a few precious seconds of someone’s attention as they skim through your thing, why do you want them to spend part of that time thinking about someone else’s thing?

Continue reading "Why are you giving social media companies free marketing?" →