Anyone who reads the financial news knows these are not flush times for those of us entrenched in the newspaper business. But in the midst of doom and gloom predictions about the future of newspapers, we are not treading water at The Mercury waiting to sink or be rescued. Quite the contrary -- we are launching new projects and trying out new things and involving more people in different creative tasks than I can recall ever happening in my 30-some years in this business.

Most of the ideas spring from the brain of our publisher, Tom Abbott, but they quickly gather creative sparks from many of us here. We have become almost overnight a multi-department ideas operation where editorial, advertising, online, promotions, production graphics and circulation strengths converge on an idea and try to make it something exciting. We had Intros, Gas Giveaway, Staycation Planner, and The Bear Hunt.

Here's another one:

About a year ago, reporter Evan Brandt was on vacation out West and came back with a copy of a Denver paper about the time the Phillies were headed into Rockies' territory in the National League playoffs. The paper featured several interesting promotional ideas, one of which was a hat readers could craft from the paper and wear to games cheering on their favorite team. And, we all know that worked out pretty well for them.

We saved the copy for reference. About a week ago, reporter Brandie Kessler was having a slow night on the police beat and got the idea of making newspaper hats to hand out along the Fourth of July parade route. She made customized samples for staffers in the newsroom. Mine features a Yahoo Hot Jobs ad that reads "start loving your boss."

Brandie's creative spurt inspired promotions director Chris March (yes, he's my son) to pull out the Rockies hat and suggest that we do something similar for the Fourth of July. Give readers a colorful page in Thursday's paper to make a hat; seek business advertising support ; involve readers in actually doing something with the paper, including directions on how to make the hat.

Tom the Publisher then suggested a "Mercury minute" video for our Web site demonstrating how to make the hat as a promo to the paper, and Eileen Faust, online editor, quickly got on board designing a promo ad for http://www.pottsmerc.com/

The idea isn't going to make us a lot of money, nor will it win awards or send single-copy sales high on the charts. But, we hope it will get people talking. We hope that some families will sit down together at the kitchen table and make a hat. We hope to see just one youngster, or oldster for that matter, wearing one along the parade route (two or three would be even better!)

We hope that people say, "Did you see what was in the paper today?"

We hope it makes someone smile.

We have lots of ideas, but this is our idea for Thursday. This is our daily brainstorm. Buy a paper and check it out.