Spreading the word
We were pleased on Monday to play host to Dwight Silverman, online editor for the Houston Chronicle, who is here for a few days this week to learn about the N&R's online initiative and the Greensboro blogging community. (He was scheduled to be getting together today with some local bloggers, including Roch, Chewie and Sue.)
While he was here, he talked with me and a variety of other staffers in both News and N&R Interactive. He liked a lot of what he saw, but what appeared to blow him away the most was the dialogue on Patrick Eakes' blog involving a post in which Patrick challenged a couple of factual assertions in our Sunday article on character education. "You're so calm and serene about it!" he marveled. Well, yes, I said, because in the future we're trying to create, this is exactly what is supposed to happen. (And you can keep to yourself any snarky comments about my being calm and serene. Hee.)
Dwight talked about some obstacles he sees to trying to do in Houston what we're doing here, even as he listed some encouraging signs. To Dwight or anyone else, I would say: This stuff looks a lot more feasible once the truth really sinks in that business as usual will kill your business. As Ed Cone has said frequently, there's nothing all that special about Greensboro. This could be happening in a lot of other places, if a few people simply decide to make it so.