When organizations fossilize, they die

Thanks to colleague Chuck Peters for passing along a wonderful blog about why change is so important to keep organizations vibrant and alive. It couldn't be more relevant to newspapers where staffs struggle with the smallest inkling of change. The following excerpt comes from the blog "the brand builder" and notes the fragilty of ideas, and the need to keep experimenting and changing.

“I have never stabilized an organization. Crystallizing an organization is freezing the energy. In chemistry, instability is very good because it creates some combinations you don’t expect.”

“Without change, there is fossilization,and that’s the worst thing that can happen.”

“Ideas,are so fragile, so tenuous, that managers must destroy layers that can obscure or damage them. If you have an organization that is too administrative, you are just killing the ideas. As we say in France, when you ask a committee to draw a horse, you get a camel.”

Following the Obama inauguration on Twitter, Facebook and text messaging

I nestled in to watch the inauguration from my vacation spot on the Georgia coast but did so with the help of some special correspondents. An old colleague was on the mall in Washington sending me updates on Twitter, another friend who works at National Public Radio (Tony Marcano) was there sending me photos via Facebook (that's his picture with this story) and a third (Supervisor Michael Rubio) was filling me in via text message on my phone. All of which added additional elements of color and drama that made the moment much more than a one dimensional interface with my TV. Newspapers and their websites need to find ways to capture and embrace this kind of technology less they become even more irrelevant as a forum that provides "yesterday's news today."

User-generated content (UGC): get used to it

Newsrooms across America are wringing their hands and fretting about the dreaded question over the value of user-generated content. I have news for them: get used to it. The days of newsrooms setting the agenda are over, and in fact there are myriad examples of UGC that are more compelling than anything one might read in their local newspaper. Here are two examples, both dealing with niche topics where UGC flourish. The first is a blog written out of Washington D.C. devoted to learning the guitar (www.playalittleguitar.com) It's refreshing and wonderfully put together and relies on the wit of its author rather than its content. The second is a local Bakersfield website devoted to hard-core bicyclists. Written by retired endodontist Dr. Robert Smith, Velobob.com is far less elegant in design but nonetheless is rich in content. If you are a cyclist in Kern County, it's a must read for information on rides, product recalls and local gossip. Both of these sites live outside the mainstream media and thrive, and it's time newsrooms recognize the power of UGC and its contribution to local media.

Hottest cars and trucks: Prius, Subaru sell nationally while we cling to our trucks

I spotted a list in the Wall Street Journal today about the hottest selling cars in the country (based on days on the lot in December) and wondered where we stand. So I checked our research department and no surprise here: six of the top 10 selling vehicles in B-town are pickups (Chevy and Ford lead the pack. In contrast, nationally six of the top ten can be considered compacts or subcompacts) What was surprising was that nine of the top 10 hottest vehicles in the country did not make the local list (only the Honda Civic did). Locally, the only model to actually sell more vehicles in November versus the previous year was the Toyota Corolla. Trucks took the biggest plunge, starting with the Chevy Tahoe SUV (down 82 percent!) and followed by the Toyota Tundra (down 50 percent) and Toyota Tacoma (down 48 percent). Here's the list, starting with Bako's top 10 and in parenthesis the nation's hottest vehicles:

1) Chevrolet C/K pickup (BMWX6 nationally)
2) Ford F-Series pickup (Honda Fit)
3) Toyota Camry (Mini Cooper)
4) Toyota Corolla (Toyota Prius)
5) GMC C/K pickup (Audi A5/S5)
6) Dodge Ram Pickup (Dodge Challenger)
7) Honda Accord (Scion xD)
8) Toyota Tundra (Subaru Forester)
9) Toyota Tacoma (Honda Civic)
10) Honda Civic (Lincoln MKS)

Clearly our service-based economy and oil explains a lot of the demand for full-size trucks, but what about the rest of us?

Wendy watch: a grueling week at Cedars Sinai

Got a nice note from Wendy Wayne, the former First Five chairwoman who's waging a knock-down battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Wendy is spending the week at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles for four straight days of chemotherapy. Each session is 12 hours long, enough to turn anyone sour, but this is Wendy. She emailed me after Day One typically upbeat, saying "... it has been a very pleasant experience, thus far. A bit surreal. Taking each day as it comes." The real reason for her email was not to update me on the chemo, but to put in a plug for a young college grad who's looking for work. That's so Wendy, working the network for others even as she has her own worries. Send your thoughts southward to Wendy and her family.

Finally, some good news from local real estate

Sometimes it hard to see the light when you're so far down in the salt mine, but Watson-Touchstone president Ken Carter says there is good news in local home sales. "There are more deals at lower prices, and that's not a bad thing," Carter told me. Consider: Watson's Realtors sold 241 homes in December compared to 151 the previous year, but the price dropped from an average of $254,000 to $191,000. For 2008, the average price was $226,000, down from $300,000 in 2007. But for folks like Carter, that's terrific news because houses are selling, rates are low and we're working through all that excess inventory. "We're burning through inventory," he said. "I wish you guys would report that! This is good news." We'll take the good news when it comes.

Bluecoats from a red county head to Washington

There isn't a more excited group in town than the handful of Kern County Democrats headed to Washington for next week's inauguration. It's hard being a Democrat is such a red county, but these folks have persevered and lived to seen the dream realized-not to mention find seats and a place to stay in D.C. Supervisor Michael Rubio and wife Dora are going, as are City Councilwoman Sue Benham and husband Herb Benham, the Californian columnist. Also headed east are educator Bernita Jenkins, Tiara Cox and Karen Gaul, just to name a few. Meanwhile back home the local Sean Hannity-wanna-be talk show hosts do their best to rain on the nation's hopes. Is it asking too much to wish this new president - or any president - well?

Of pitbulls, charlatans and fields of dreams

What is it they say about the more things change the more they stay the same? That's what it seemed like when today's Bakersfield Californian hit on three recurring themes: a pitbull that attacked a 12-year-old girl is saved (should we be proud that pitbull attack stories are the staple of our news on any given day?), the disgraced real estate broker Carl Cole wants his license back, and once again the city is considering building a multi-million-dollar baseball stadium to save a minor league team that struggles to draw more than a few hundred paid fans a night, and all at a time when we have no money to pave roads or build new ones, improve infrastructure or put more cops on the street. It seems like we all deserve better than this.