You can't write a blog post suggesting a radical approach to revitalizing an industry without expecting some flack, and yet several days after suggesting that the national Main Street Program's four-point approach to bringing new life to downtowns also might work well for the newspaper industry, I have yet to hear a single response.
Not even a “Ted, what were you thinking?”
That surprises me for several reasons, not the least being that my March 23 post (“Lessons for newspapers from Main Street”) was the third most-read of my blog posts, behind “When your best ain't good enough,” which actually was my second most-read post since I started this blog on Dec. 14 My first post, “First stunned, then pain and grief,” in which I chronicled my layoff, continues to be the best-read post I've ever had.
I am grateful to you who jump on to read my posts. “Laid off at 51: Seeking joy in change” has been far more successful than I would have expected just in terms of page views over the past three months or so.
But it can be difficult to gauge impact. Few people add their own comments to my individual posts, fewer still send e-mails with their thoughts. And I'm surprised that at least a few copy editors haven't written to point out the typos that occur from time to time (any editor worth his salt will admit that perhaps the biggest challenge is editing his own work because he knows what he was trying to write and therefore is likely to skate right past mistakes without recognizing them).
