Why a Blog?

I love blogs! I started my blog a couple of months into my new position at Ohio Hi-Point Career Center as a way to communicate with staff and other interested parties and let them know what I was doing in my office. Our staff needed educated and brought to an understanding about marketing, communications, branding and other items. They needed to understand why we run all print materials that go out through one office, why we speak with one voice, why we use standardized fonts and graphics, and on and on. For years the staff at OHP had been doing their own thing, and I was hired to change that culture. A blog was a perfect way to reach the staff. It is a place they can read about what I am up to, view ads I have put out there to the public, read about success stories, view photo galleries and provide feedback. The feedback part is the most important part. Blogs are meant to be places where a dialogue is created and on-going.
So that is why those of us who met during the OSBA Capital Conference this week agreed that a blog would be a great forum for those of us who work in Career-Tech Education, and more specifically, those of us who handle the PR, marketing, recruiting, and image for our districts.
My name is Shane Haggerty, the communications coordinator at Ohio Hi-Point Career Center in Bellefontaine, Ohio, and I welcome you to this blog, which hopefully will become a forum for sharing ideas, asking questions, learning from one another and more! I for some reason volunteered myself to start the blog and moderate it (one more thing to do!!), but I believe in this technology and feel strongly about its use in marketing and communications. I invite those of you who work in this field to post comments on the blog or email me topics you want to discuss. You can also write a blog entry via email, send it to me at shaggerty@ohp.k12.oh.us and I will post as soon as I can. Eventually, we will figure out how to best use this blog, but for now, feel free to let me know what you would like to talk about, questions you want asked of our colleagues, etc.
Finally, I attended a conference in Chicago this past September. It was all about social media (YouTube, MySpace, blogs, Wikis, RSS Feeds, etc.), and I attended a session about blogging. Here are some great tips on blogging and how blogs can work:
*Blogs are never-ending town hall meeting
*Blogs are different from articles. They should be written in "real speak."
*We need to use blogs in marketing and PR because the younger generation reads them and writes on them, and if we don't join the conversation, the conversation will continue without us and our message will be lost.
*Blogs should be written in first-person.
*Blogs can be personal anecdotes, involve telling stories, and follow-ups based on comments posted, feedback and conversations.
*Blogs should inspire comments, invite conversation, acknowledge contributions from others, encourage others to speak up.

You can visit my internal work blog at:
http://ohpcommunications.blogspot.com

You can also visit my superintendent's blog at:
http://ohiohipointsupt.blogspot.com

I will continue to educate about blogging on here and provide more links that are useful. Please let me know what you want to talk about or seek out by using this blog!