It's been a few weeks since Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien started his personal blog, Mayor Larry (It may seem like more because entries go back to February, but the blog only went live in May.)And I was tempted to write about it earlier this week when Jeff Polowin, a long-time observer of and participant in municipal government, and a senior vice-president at Hill & Knowlton's Ottawa office, wrote an open letter to Mayor O'Brien as his column in the Ottawa Business Journal. (
Polowin wrote that the blog was "not a good idea from any way you look at it... my first two pieces of unsolicited advice are: forget the blog, and stop blaming the media for everything."
As a social media zealot, it pains me to have to agree with this advice. And in fact, I was prepared to post a counter-argument. But my RSS feeds have brought me around to Polowin's point of view -- in Larry's case specifically.
Local blogger Zoom writes at a site called Knitnut.net, and on June 3, she posted on her failing quest to figure out where US homelessness guru Philip Mangano was. As she tells it:
"Mayor Larry stated on his blog on Sunday that he’s meeting today with Philip Mangano to discuss homelessness. Mangano is George W. Bush’s “homeless Czar.”
I left a comment on Larry’s blog on Sunday asking if there would be any opportunities for the public to attend speeches, debates, presentations, etc. by Mangano. My comment never appeared on Larry’s blog, nor did anybody respond to my inquiry.
I suspect the Mayor is not yet clear on the two-way nature of blogging communications."
I was willing to let O'Brien and / or his staff work out the kinks. For example, I was surprised that there were so few comments on the blog (I count 11 to date). I assumed they were building audience. But Zoom's story makes me wonder if comments are being posted or seen.
I was also willing to give them time to find a voice for the blog. But to this point, it's continued to be not much more than another place to drop advisories and releases. There's little of O'Brien's personality in most of the writing. It feels massaged and corporate, and there's not much point in that.
Compare this to the blogs written by Dawson City Mayor John Steins or Guelph Mayor Karen Farbridge. Their blogs are far more personal, more colloquial, and give you a sense of the person wearing the chain of office.
Steins, for example, writes that Hazel McCallion is "quite the firecracker". Farbridge asks her readers questions about what they think about waste disposal and uses people's comments as incentives to post her own thoughts about issues.
So as much as I would love to challenge Jeff Polowin to pistols at dawn (perhaps we could meet on a crossover floor, since we work in the same building!), I have to agree with him. So far, Mayor Larry's blog is a failed experiment.
Ciao,
Bob.
2 comments:
Thanks for the link to the Mayor's blog. I've subscribed and I'm looking forward to seeing what he has to see to me as a citizen of Ottawa. And I sure hope that he asks questions. I'm keen to comment.
One question: What do you think of the "pop-up mayor?" I've seen this type of animation only once before - on the CMA national conference site. At first it struck me as kind of neat. But on second viewing, it struck me as an ad-guy's brainchild - something that put presentation ahead of content. And frankly, it really detracted from my experience of the site. But maybe I'm alone in this impression.
Readers of my site were pretty much unanimously creeped out by the English pop-up mayor and amused by the French one.
As for asking questions - well, the mayor says he welcomes feedback and comments and encourages dialogue, but as Bob points out, my comment was never published and my question was neither acknowledged nor answered.
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