Lost Remote calls it “the same sad song, different sad verse.” I call it “the new normal.”

Staffing levels fluctuate at businesses all the time. Those who work in the newspaper industry and avoided this operational reality for so long should be thankful for their good fortune. But this is how the world works.

I hear newspaper execs often wish to “find the bottom” or wait “until the dust settles.” Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Grab the ball and run with it. There’s no time to wait for more teammates to help out.

I’m not saying this is better. Or fun. It just is. And the sooner everyone still working for a news organization figures this out and picks up the pace, the better off they’ll be.

A bunker mentality won’t get you out of this.

I’ve long argued that the news industry’s current economic crisis is due in large part to a lack of R&D. It’s not in the DNA. For too many decades, the products didn’t change and the profits rolled in.

Now, entrepreneurial journalism is working to fill that void.

In the recent issue of Inc. magazine, William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business offered this key insight in the overview piece on the Inc. 500:

“Entrepreneurs are the R&D for the economy.”

Hopefully, they will be the R&D for the news business, too. We all know it needs them.

True research and development means painstaking pursuit of an idea. It’s not the try-it-today, ditch-it-tomorrow model that most news organizations are forced to use since the innovators are the same people managing the daily news report.

I think it’s up to them – dare I say “us” – to help save the news business.

I’m officially on “the countdown” with my day job at The News Tribune. If I work through September part-time (as is the current plan) then I have something like 12 days left at the paper after this week.

So this decision to branch out on my own is getting very real. Which makes me excited and a bit anxious. Meaning I love running across great inspiration from one of my favorite bloggers as I did yesterday …

The alternative is to do your best to pick a direction … and then do it. Loudly. With patience and passion. (Loud doesn’t mean boorish. Loud means proud and joyful and with confidence.)

No flitting, no waiting for proof. Just consistent, overwhelming performance in pursuit of a vision you believe in. That’s far more important than which direction you chose in the first place.

Thanks, Mr. Godin, for summing up my new goals so succintly.