THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501290065
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Editor's Notebook
SOURCE: Cole C. Campbell
Editor
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Allow me to introduce you to Dilbert, the guy in the comic strip nestled inside today's notebook.
Dilbert is a white-collar gladiator, or perhaps just a nerd, who struggles to survive the swirling currents of office life.
He is consoled and cajoled along the way by his trusty pet, Dogbert, and trusty pest, Ratbert.
With his glasses, flat-top hairdo, short-sleeved shirt and pocket protector, Dilbert looks a bit like the defense-industry worker played by Michael Douglas in ``Falling Down.''
Dilbert stumbles through all the travails of work life - from lousy pay raises to corporate downsizing to total quality management.
When his boss asks how Dilbert should prepare for a visit from the CEO, Dilbert knows the realpolitick answer: ``We should stop all productive work and create overhead transparencies that exaggerate our value.''
Beginning Monday, Dilbert will be a new star of our daily business report. And he will bathe in almost-living color in the Sunday comics section beginning April 2, after Berkeley Breathed retires his ``Outland'' strip on March 26.
Cartoonist Scott Adams started drawing ``Dilbert'' to brighten otherwise tedious staff meetings. Adams is a technology consultant at Pacific Bell and bases many of his strips on people he works with. Reportedly, a lot of his colleagues don't recognize themselves.
Like many of you, we at The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star will recognize ourselves in situations described in the strip.
We've struggled with teamwork, readership research and keeping costs low to deliver the best value to our customers.
We've endeavored to implement a total quality management program - hard work, especially in a newsroom, where tasks are not easily quantified or measured.
We've learned that we must continuously improve, to keep pace with the needs of our readers and advertisers.
For example, we keep working to improve our business news coverage. We've already moved to a free-standing daily Business News section, to give more visibility to breaking business news and more space to stock listings.
We've refocused our Sunday Business section to go more in-depth on business topics, especially the trends in Hampton Roads.
Come Monday, you'll see a revamped version of Hampton Roads Business Weekly, putting more emphasis on money, small business, technology and the workplace.
Among other new features, the section includes an innovative local computer column, ``Doubleclick,'' by brothers Roger and Richard Grimes. The column has a double edge - technical know-how and a brassy attitude.
Dilbert would approve.
On today's Sunday Business front, Business Editor Joe Coccaro discusses in greater detail the changes that he, Business Weekly Editor Ted Evanoff and the entire business team have been making.
It's all part of our struggle to make the paper better.
Like others caught in the upheavals of change, we make it through the rough spots because, while we always take our work seriously, we don't always take ourselves seriously.
And that's the secret to surviving amidst chaos - and the key to enjoying ``Dilbert.'' ILLUSTRATION: DILBERT
by CNB