Welcome to all my new visitors. Thanks in large part to Jim Carty’s Paper Tiger No More, I’ve had a huge spike — for me — in blog visitors. Jim gave my interview with Tony Dearing props on his blog last night, and my Monday stats were about four times my previous best day.
Since I suspect many of you are first timers, the basic premise of my blog is telling stories of reinvention — personal, professional, individual, organizational. Sometimes I highlight an example of transformation, sometimes I muse about a related topic. It’s sort of self improvement-y, but a little less new age sensitive than some of that genre can be.
While my interview with Tony drove a bump in traffic, it’s not the only story of big change taking place today in my home state:
— Today was the day Detroit’s two former daily newspapers, the News and the Free Press, stopped delivering seven days a week. As Chris Gautz, a Jackson Citizen Patriot blogger, notes, the timing was unfortunate.

Let today serve as a warning to all of the newspaper executives thinking that printing only a few days a week is a good idea.
Today started the new identity of the Detroit News and Free Press, which will no longer offer home delivery seven days a week. That means that you can only get today’s paper at newspaper boxes and stores.
Today was also the day the paper contains news of the major story about GM CEO Rick Wagoner being ousted by the White House and the Spartans moving on to the Final Four, which will be played in Detroit.

The papers will be printed seven days, but only appear on your doorstep about half the week. It sounded like a radical experiment when it was announced. Then along came the Ann Arbor News, though the difference isn’t as dramatic as it might sound, since Ann Arbor will still have some kind of printed publication twice a week.
— And, as the above aludes to, General Motors will be getting new leadership, with Rick Wagoner forced out. Here’s an AP story by Tom Krisher, former metro editor of the Ann Arbor News, and Dan Strumpf. What will the shake up mean for GM? Tom and Dan write this:

The management shake-up, according to several industry analysts, shows that the administration is serious about forcing GM to change more quickly and dramatically than it did during Wagoner’s nearly nine-year tenure as CEO.

There’s a lot that could use changing in the auto industry. But that’s a post for another time.
For all of this new traffic, not a single comment from any of you on annarbor.com or the Ann Arbor News? What’s on your mind?