This post was written by Steven A. Smith for his blog "News is a Conversation.  The editor of the Spokesman-Review (Spokane), Steven has worked with the Harwood Institute for more than a decade.  What follows is his post reflecting on the experience of attending his first Harwood Public Innovators Summit:

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I just returned home from the three-day innovators summit in Stevenson, WA.

I need some time to synthesize what I learned. Suffice it to say for now the innovations most helpful to newspapers probably won't come from our own industry. This conference was a chance to spend time with innovators in a variety of business and non-profit roles. The ideas I will steal from them will help push our own transformational change, I hope.

But today's end-of-conference discussion did have an epiphinous moment worth sharing.

We were discussing the writings of noted social activist Dorothy Day.

This line jumped off the page for me.

"No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."

Words a weary editor, all weary editors and newspaper people, need to take to heart.

Steven A. Smith, Editor, Spokesman-Review