February 11, 2013

A Community Newspaper's Mission and My Vision


People have told me for many years that newspapers are a vanishing breed soon to be as extinct as dinosaurs.I believe those predictions to be true and imminent for the daily newspaper, however, the weekly newspaper is a different creature. It is much less threatened by the Internet news providers and likely to be the longest lasting of this dinosaur medium we call newspapers. I see them surviving well into this century's third decade.

I considered buying the local newspaper, but two things came glaring out of my due diligence;  one, I did not want to buy someone's current situation and two, I could, with the support of the amazing team I have put together, do it myself.


So my vision of a community newspaper.
  • Focus - On an affinity group geographically defined and bound.
  • Education - The basis for our educators to communicate with our community, be it anywhere from pre-school to collegiate level.
  • Theme - Rally around the community and people who support it.
  • Business - First serve the community from within. Second, support the community produced products that generate employment and third, be a communication conduit between businesses and the community to create a stable and efficient business environment.
  • Government - The portal for government information that the community needs to know and a method to discuss issues through civic journalism.
Thus my community, Windham, Maine 
Exemplified by - An Eagle - In our Schools and in our Community.
The Windham Eagle
Publishing Volume 1 - Issue 1 - March 1, 2013

February 6, 2013

No Saturday Residential Postal Delivery - The Post Office as a Lean-Mean-Competitive Machine.


The US Postal Services have taken the first step (maybe the second or more) in becoming a true competitive machine.  The elimination of Saturday postal delivery saves huge on costs without becoming any less competitive.  The USPS needs to continue taking competitive strides which will improve its position and perception in the market it wants to be in. Bring back the positive as stated United States Postal Service Creed.
  • UPS does not deliver Saturday unless you pay huge dollars for the added service.
  • Fed-x does not deliver Saturday unless you pay huge dollars for the added service.
Oh yea, the post office will still deliver Express on Saturday for a lot less than than the Saturday charges of its competition.  Hey - those other guys don't deliver the mail.

Competitive Advantage: USPS

Oh yea, still located conveniently near you.