I don’t work for The Man (or The Woman for that matter.) Actually, I do very little for pay.

Five years ago my wife and I decided to change our lives. We cut down, cut back, and cut away. We moved to Lakeland, Florida so she could continue her career and I could end mine.

Yes, I became a “stay-at-home Dad.” That lasted a few months. Lovely weeks of going to Disney with my four-year-old. Until Mickey started calling us by name.

Then my daughter school. In response, I turned my “look what I found in my new home” site into Lakeland Local, a hyperlocal news site. (Basically, an old-fashioned weekly newspaper, but without the ink on your fingers.)

The same as a weekly, except for the ads. I didn’t want to sell ads…or find sponsors. I wrote all the content myself..and took the photos…and designed the layout. Again, not much different than the old-fashioned weekly.

Again, except the lack of advertising.

When I’d talk to Lakelanders, they’d ask how I supported the site. More importantly, how did I make money? I’d answer I didn’t and didn’t intend to. They’d shake their heads and wander off.

Really, it doesn’t cost a lot to maintain a small hyperlocal website. I can afford it because my family lives very small. More expensive was the time I took to make the site. That’s expensive. It’s limited. But I didn’t have to use any of it to sell ads.

I’m sure most people thought I’d eventually find a job and give up Lakeland Local. I fooled them. I didn’t look for a job. However, I did find other ways to give away my time. More importantly, I found others who wanted to volunteer their time to write and shoot photos or video.

Other people who had the passion for news without needing the cash for news.

Now, some volunteers came on hard and heavy and burned out. Some were steady and oh…so…slow you’re not sure if they’re still writing, but they would pop up with an article every Blue Moon. But most shoot photos or write regularly. To the point Lakeland Local survives and is now in Year Five.

Why all the background and talk of advertising?

I was recently lucky enough to be invited to a summit of hyperlocal publishers. In one room were about a hundred others crazy enough to believe hyperlocal news is one important piece of the future media. We spend a lot of time talking about what we did and how we did it; time talking about what worked and what didn’t.

Guess what I learned there?

It takes money to make hyperlocal work.

Well, at least that was the comment on the lips of most. Whether it was finding grants or sponsors or subscribers or advertisers…it was about finding money.

So, I came back and made a decision. Lakeland Local is going to start accepting advertising.

But, I have to do it my way.

We’ll only accept advertising from small, locally owned businesses. And each business has to make the ads in house. Oh, and it has to be one minute video or 30 second audio…no text.

And it’s free.

The only way I want to sell advertising for Lakeland Local is to give it away.

Are you a small Lakeland-based business? Do you need to find a way to let other Lakelanders know you’re out there?

Grab your Flip. Get your hair cut. Sweep up your front desk. Shoot a video.

Send it to me. I’ll promote your business. I want you to succeed and I’ll do it for free.

It’s about my passion for Lakeland. Not the cash.

Brown University:

Dartmouth:

University of Michigan:

It reminded me of the time my daughter helped me clean out an old box…

Scene, pre-teen daughter helping her father clear out an old box.

“Dad, what’s this”

“It’s an adapter.”

“An adapter for what?”

“A single.”

“A single what?”

“A 45″

“A 45 what?”

“A 45 record.”

“A what?”

“The old black flat frisbees with the big holes.”

“Oh. You throw them with these?”

Ok, I made up the last two lines. I think I actually said, “Nevermind.” and threw the adapter in the garbage.

• Jimmy Carter: “Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation…”

• Jimmy Carter: “The Amer. dream endures. We must once again have full faith in our country and in one another. I believe America can be better.”

• Harry Truman: “The supreme need for our time is for men to learn to live together in peace and harmony.”

• George W. Bush (2001): “And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.”

• George W. Bush (2001): “We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.”

• FDR (1933) You know the famous line: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

but I like what came next…

• FDR (1933): “In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

I love what he said about the reasons for the depression:

• FDR (1933): “Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”

OK, that might be a bit long. But it is all relevant to today. I’d quote the rest of that 1933 speech, but you get the idea. Take a look at it. I bet you can find a favorite line or two.

Jefferson in 1801 was probably the best prepared to be President, but look at his opening sentence:

• Jefferson (1801): “Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire.”

Jefferson also listed what he considered the essential principles of the Government: First up?

• Jefferson (1801): “Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;”

Jefferson on the fate of a President:

• Jefferson(1801): “I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.”