Ben Franklin has always been my hero.  You know the story: Writer. Inventor. Diplomat.  Pretty much founded a country.  Et Cetera.

Franklin was always pretty much a one-man band.  If you were a lesser man - oh, say, John Adams or Thomas Jefferson - you might find reason to complain that Franklin would do stuff like negotiate the birth of a nation with France without ever fully letting you in on what was going on.

As a newspaper and almanac publisher, Franklin was even better - or worse, depending on your point of view.  It would be interesting to run some of the great man's antics - living up a dead edition by writing letters to the editor under pseudonyms, for example - past, say, the ethics doyens at the Society of Professional Journalists.

Be that as it may, here's the relevant point:  You're not Ben Franklin.  (Neither am I, natch.)

In the centuries since Franklin gave up the publishing business to go into diplomacy and science, newspapers evolved from one-man bands into complex organizations.  It stands to reason, if you think about it.  First, few people are polymaths, never mind one on the scale of Franklin - did you know that he invented a musical instrument that had pieces composed for it by both Mozart and Beethoven?

Second … doesn't it just sound exhausting?

Third, it seems to stand to reason that in most cases a staff will be stronger than an individual: more heads should equal more talent and more ideas.

So here's a question.  Let's say, for the sake of the discussion, that the first rush of blogging is over.  If so, what comes next?

That's one of the things I'm planning to explore here in the coming weeks.  This again is part of the conversation the great Dean Brown and I have been having for the last few months.

So here's a thought: If the natural progression for newspapers was from single proprietor to staff-driven publications, won't the next phase be group blogs?  There are already a few interesting ones out there …

More on that soon.