Interested in Learning to Change?

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Some time ago Steve Rubel has launched the idea of inviting a selected group of leaders from mid-large size PR firms to “brainstorm some joint action initiatives to immerse PR pros” in social media technologies. Jeremy Pepper had a better idea:

Why hide behind an iron curtain, though? Make the Wiki public, and invite all various PR firms and PR bloggers to be involved. Or, why not do this on the New PR/Wiki?

Steve has accepted the suggestion to use the NewPR Wiki for this project, but the participation is still restricted to people working in midsize or large PR firm. I’m not exactly enthusiastic about the idea of having only a small group of people invited to this project, but it’s Steve’s project and I respect his approach (and FishBowl wikis are not exactly new).

But what about the rest of us — PR pros, consultants and students (maybe journalists, too?)– who might want to join the conversation?

Well, it’s simple: we can start a new wiki page and use it for sharing ideas and comments on the same topics as our colleagues. If you’re interested to participate in this project (any suggestions for a name? how about Learning to Change?), please leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at cbasturea@gmail.com, and I’ll send you an edit password.

There’s no need to feel excluded from the conversation; we can start our own.

Update:

Steve Rubel announced me that the Going the Distance project is no longer invitation-only. If you have already an edit password for the NewPR Wiki, you can contribute. If you don’t have the password, please contact Steve or send me an e-mail.

Second, I think I have to clarify a couple of things. Despite trying to do my best to explain the reasons why I posted this entry, here’s what I read on Niall Cook’s blog:

Now Constantin Basturea has weighed in by starting a separate wiki page (also on The NewPR Wiki) for those who feel “excluded from the conversation”. The implication is that – by participating in Steve’s initiative – we want to exclude and ignore other points of view. This could not be further from the truth.

Of course, everyone is perfectly entitled to create their own wikis, or even just talk about the issues on their own blogs, but this is all getting a little bit silly.

What we have here is a failure to communicate (what?), I think, so I will reiterate my reasons:

  • It was clear from the beginning that people who are not invited to participate will be unhappy about it; I didn’t invented this: it’s all in the comments and trackback posted back in October, and reignited recently.
  • Since people asked “what about us?” and since Steve’s project is hosted by the NewPR Wiki, I thought I have to respond to these questions by -at least- offering a discussion space for those who felt that their ideas are ignored just because they’re not working in large PR agencies. It’s people’s choice if they want to use it or not.
  • I never implied that any of the people participating in Steve’s initiative have the intention to exclude and ignore other points of view. That thought never crossed my mind.

Glad to see this solved.

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