Entrepreneur of the Year

When I was in high school and down in the dumps about something, my dad said to me "it could be worse -- you could have no legs." He was right. No matter what gets my goat throughout my day, week, year, I have little reason to really complain compared to other people.

Other people like Alison Schuback for example. Alison is Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year for 2008 and for good reason. After a catastrophic car accident, Alison was left with disabilities resulting from brain injury. Through her surgeries and rehab, Alison came up with the Invisibib -- a clear, vinyl bib for adults to wear to protect their clothing when eating. Brilliant!

The child of entrepreneurial parents, Schuback equates opportunity with self-employment. As medical bills mounted, she wanted to make money, not raise it or have others raise it for her. So in 2002 she invented a transparent, washable bib for adults with disabilities and launched a company to sell it.

Read her inspirational story here.

What Mimi Saw

If you haven't checked out 2008: The Year in Pictures from The New York Times you are missing out. They're amazing. Here are two of my favorites:

Modern day Anna Karenina

I am slightly obsessed with my new book, What Happened to Anna K. by Irina Reyn, and I'm convinced that if I hadn't bought myself a new 32" plasma television for Christmas and had a new disk of The Office to watch I'd be done with the book by now.

I read Anna Karenina a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. And this book -- a modern day Anna Karenina set in New York City -- is making me like the original even more. I may have to re-read it once I'm done with Reyn's incarnation.

If you're looking for a new book to read check this one out. It was just published in August, 2008, so there aren't any paperbacks yet in circulation but it's worth it to put it on hold at your local library.

Factory Girls by Leslie Chang

So I finished Factory Girls yesterday. I was on a mission as I have another book from the library sitting on my night stand, beckoning me.

While I really liked Factory Girls I found the two narratives of the book didn't meld together into a cohesive unit. While the book was, in fact, about China's young migrant worker women, Chang also talked at length about her own ancestors in China and her families escape from the Cultural Revolution. I thought the book could have done without so much of Chang's families past as it had extremely loose ties to the main focus of the book. It was odd to read about Min's factory hopping to better her situation and then switch to reading about how Chang's grandfather was murdered by Communists at the Fushun Mine. Not enough of a parallel to read smoothly.

In any case, I appreciated the time Chang took to really get to know the young women she wrote about. She obviously went to great lengths to keep in touch with them and even visited one of their home villages. I can see why this book made the New York Times list of the top 100 books of 2008. It is expertly reported and well written.

Check out an excerpt from the book via NPR here.

Put this one on your "to read" list. Next up: What Happened to Anna K.: A Novel.

My prediction all along....

I have worked for a national magazine, an industry weekly, a large newspaper, a business website, a smaller newspaper, and a regional magazine. When people ask me the future of newspapers this is what I tell them: I predict that large newspapers like the New York Times, Boston Globe, etc. will, eventually, be online only. Small community weeklies will thrive in print. Why? People love to see their name in print, and most ordinary people wont make the news outside of their community. Parents love to see their kids names and photographs for honor roll and local sports.

There is an alternative community newspaper in Asbury, New Jersey, who has shunned the web and is thriving in spite of, or because of, it. Here's a blurb from the New York Times story:

Finally, a story about a print organization that has found a way to tame the Web and come up with a digital business approach that could serve as a model. Except that TriCityNews of Monmouth County, N.J., is prospering precisely because it aggressively ignores the Web. Its Web site has a little boilerplate about the product and lists ad rates, but nothing more. (The address is trinews.com, for all the good it will do you.)

“Why would I put anything on the Web?” asked Dan Jacobson, the publisher and owner of the newspaper. “I don’t understand how putting content on the Web would do anything but help destroy our paper. Why should we give our readers any incentive whatsoever to not look at our content along with our advertisements, a large number of which are beautiful and cheap full-page ads?”

What TriCityNews has going for it is the fact that they have no competition. People don't look to this paper for breaking news like they would a national newspaper or website.

I think this is the best news I've heard in months. And it validates my newspaper predictions and makes me feel smart.

Instead of layoffs.....

I was really happy when I read this article in the New York Times about what companies across the country were doing to avoid laying off their employees.

A growing number of employers, hoping to avoid or limit layoffs, are introducing four-day workweeks, unpaid vacations and voluntary or enforced furloughs, along with wage freezes, pension cuts and flexible work schedules. These employers are still cutting labor costs, but hanging onto the labor.

The article talked about how faculty and staff at Brandeis University are opting for a 1% pay cut to save jobs. While 1% of a salary doesn't really make a dent it could save someone else from being unemployed. This is a novel idea! Check out the article and read the comments -- quite interesting!

When I worked at the Portland Press Herald, the big bosses suggested that employees take a week of unpaid vacation to save jobs. They were actually surprised at how many people signed up. If employees believe in the company they work for and have relationships with their coworkers, I believe they are more likely to give a little than go through layoffs.

Is it better to have a job even if you have to suffer a pay cut, no holiday party or year end bonus than to be out of a job completely? I guess it depends on how much you like your job. For me, working for a small company, I'd do a lot to keep my job. As a journalist I feel fortunate to have a secure job in this market.

I think it's worth it for employers to look to other efforts to save money rather than layoffs. It shows employees that they care -- especially if they, too, take a pay cut.

Maine Public Broadcasting Network pisses off public

Due to cutbacks in public broadcasting in Maine, kids in Eastern and Northern Maine will only get to watch Sesame Street for half the year. The radio towers in both Calais and Fort Kent are also going to be taken down. No more NPR. No more public radio. No more news. No more educational programming.

“These changes will allow us to keep our local focus on news and public affairs while maintaining the cultural, science and children’s programming provided by our partners at NPR and PBS. It will also allow us to continue to develop and expand our new media capabilities and engage the communities we serve with timely and relevant content, which we believe will ultimately put us back on sound financial footing,” said Dowe.

If by "local" you mean Portland than maybe this statement makes sense. There's just so much more to Maine than the southern tip. And I'm not convinced that cutting off a majority of the state to programming really outweighs developing and expanding their new media capabilities. Public broadcasting means broadcasting for everyone. They're going to have to re-brand themselves I'm afraid.

Our tax dollars go towards public broadcasting and the communities that need it most aren't going to be getting it anymore. If this isn't a thumb to the nose of rural Maine and the Canadian Maritimes I don't know what is.

Read the press release here or listen to the story here.