It's in the mail ...
Our kids like hearing stories from the olden times, from way back when Mom and Dad made newspapers. (Now that I think about it, they're not much younger than I was when started at the PNJ. That's a little tough to reconcile.)
Newspapers are still around, more or less. And even though I've now been out longer than I was in — and even though I still publish something professionally most every day — it's still a trip to see my name in print, either as a full story, or just a candidate Q&A. (And those are both things I'd edit when I worked there.)
That feeling doesn't get old, even all these years later.
To that end, it's sort of amazing how one of the most cost-efficient ways to reach voters in an election is through the mail. As in the U.S. Postal Service. Nobody picks up the phone anymore. Text messages are annoying. And I don't blame folks for not coming to the door.
But the mailbox? It's always there. I still check it daily. (I'm not one of those people who can let it wait till the next day.)
It's been fun to work with old newspaper friends in designing our mailers. And it was amazing to see how easy it is working with printing companies to have it produced and sent. Shannon and I came up with the words and pictures. We got some help on the design. We sent it to the company to be printed and mailed — they take care of parsing the voter data — and then we pay the invoice. And with that, we're in the mailboxes of all the voters in the district.
Simple. Effective. And a fun mix of old and new technology.