The headline on this post was going to end with the word "babes," meaning infants and other young innocents distinguished by their rare form of wisdom, but due to the latest trouble in New York over certain supercharged pejoratives, I opted out. But I did want to make the point that great wisdom sometimes comes from young people who are well beyond their years.
The blog to which this link will take you is written by Jill Pyle, a young woman in Canada who is a fourth year public relations student at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The picture offered here is presumably that of Ms. Pyle since it is from her blog, under the "About" section.
Much more importantly, is the insight expressed in Ms. Pyle's post entitled, "MSVU Department of Public Relations Blog."
Ms. Pyle, whose blog is more advanced than many I see routinely from professional adults (she offers trackbacks and is using the WordPress OpenSource blogging platform) talks in her post about how student involvement in the PR department's blog would bring a degree of authenticity to the effort not available through any other means. She is absolutely, totally, 100% right.
She writes, in part: …I feel that current, prospective and past MSVU PR students would appreciate the authentic voices and perspectives of MSVU’s PR students just as much, if not more than, those of MSVU’s faculty. I believe that by creating a space where MSVU’s PR students could blog about their experiences, the department would be able to further promote the program and attract new students. A student blog would also provide an opportunity for participating students to learn about the medium, evaluate it as a communications tool and make connections with other PR professionals.
My associate Dave and I are currently working on two major sanctioned institutional blogs for two diverse university systems. In both instances, a function on the blog for encouraging student posts has been included. In both instances, via WordPress, we've been able to build in a comment and post moderation offering. And in both instances, the institutions understand that short of crossing some appropriate line of decency, all posts and comments should be aired, even when they challenge the establishment. That's the whole idea behind dialogue, community, authenticity, and transparency.
I'll have more to say about our two projects in the weeks ahead. But for now, I want to commend this student for her insights. She gets it.
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