An update on Maya Poulter, six months after Haitian earthquake

Maya enjoys the Magic Kingdom

If you read this blog in January, you might remember the story of Maya, the Haitian orphan who joined our family following the Jan. 12 earthquake.

To summarize quickly:

My niece, Mandy Poulter, and her husband, Matt, had completed the the three-year adoption process before the earthquake and were just awaiting a U.S. passport so they could bring 4-year-old Maya home in February. In a series of events that Mandy and Matt describe as a miracle and an answer to prayer, ABC’s Robin Roberts found Maya at the orphanage six months ago today. Mandy and Matt brought her home to Pella, Iowa, just a week after the quake. Mandy sent this update today:

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A possible new business model for obituaries

Monday night I criticized a Pennsylvania newspaper’s plan to charge loyal online readers to read the obituaries. Today I want to suggest a more innovative, future-focused approach to obituaries.

I was interested that Ernie Schreiber, editor of the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era, cited my Newspaper Next experience in scolding me for Monday’s post. He clearly had an awareness that N2 was about innovation, but (like many of his peers in the newspaper business) he did not learn the core principles of disruptive innovation that we taught in N2.

One of the fundamental lessons of N2, based on the disruptive-innovation research of Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, was that innovation opportunities rest in identifying “jobs to be done,” needs people have. Innovators who provide welcome solutions to those jobs are on the path to success, Christensen says.

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