personal

Last week it was business travel. This week posting will be light because I am working the annual online conference we at Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group put on for the local and corporate leaders of our newspaper division.

Next week I have no excuse, so just in case you care, I'll try to make things more interesting around here after the company confab.

Yikes. My home town, Harrisburg, Illinois, is flooded. The nearby, mighty Middle Fork Saline River jumped its banks following a two-day soaking.

Check the coverage from the local paper, The Daily Register (for which, not coincidentally, members of my family toiled through three generations).

If video killed the radio star, I may soon have to claim responsibility for killing Internet radio.

At 2 p.m. Monday, Mel Taylor, webcasting from the Newspaper Association of America Marketing Conference and Connections in Orlando, will interview me about the conference, the world of newspaper-based interactive media and who-knows-what-else.

My boss, Bob Benz, announced last week he is leaving Scripps to join a new consulting and product development venture that includes a circle of mutual friends.

The new design of this Web site means a lot more than just a visual dust-off. Small Initiatives, the company, no longer represents just me, my blog and my occasional Internet design consulting.

I've had a few weeks to enjoy my promotion to general manager of Scripps Newspapers Interactive Group -- something I didn't make a big deal about in this space because, well, it's not all that relevant to this space. But it's a big deal for me, and was just starting to sink in.

So I guess it's time for another big change. This morning we got word that the E.W. Scripps Co. plans to split into two publicly held companies.