Allan Jenkins would have stood out anywhere, but he stood out particularly in the world of corporate communication, and in the International Association of Business Communicators.
As a finance-savvy analyst on an IABC executive board of writer types who knew not the meaning of the balance sheets beneath their phony furrowed brows.
As a fearless (and humorous) critic of an often fearful (and humorless) professional association.
As an erudite and discerning member of a fairly middlebrow, milquetoast communication society. (And as a lover of that society, because he loved the best people in it.)
As slightly weird among the terminally normal. (I once saw him wearing some sort of capri pants at an IABC conference.)
As dangerous among the safe, imperfect among the goody-two-shoes, profane among the wouldn't-say-shit-if-they-had-a-mouth-full-of-it, and honest among the mealy-mouthed.
Allan is in hospice care in Greenville, South Carolina.
Who will carry on his spirit?
No one of us can.
Every one of us must.
Brilliantly said
Great blog. Thanks for being the wonderful observer of our communication world. It is more helpful than your might imagine, at least for me.
I love these words despite the wine induced tears that I’m having on a San Francisco Bay ferry, after a local IABC event. Feeling guilty for the wine and needing it all the same. Carry on. We shall. We must. There is no profession without Allan’s professionalism (and no soul in the profession without his rage against the machine, to borrow from another era.)
Thank you. Xoxo
Over the years, I have heard many people describe Allan Jenkins as being various things he is not, which, in most cases, indicated that they didn’t really know Allan. You have done an exemplary job of describing Allan, Shel. He is all of those things you list and, of course, more. A case in point: My original takeaway after I’d first met Allan has remained a constant ever since: “Allan Jenkins does not suffer fools gladly.” Nor should he or we.
Hej elskede Allan
Din ven Michael Klein gav mig linket til denne side,
Vil bare sige, at jeg altid har elsket dig meget højt. Selv om vores relation altid har været meget kompliceret, har jeg aldrig har været i tvivl om, at du er et godt og elskeligt menneske. Det gør mig så ondt, at du er syg. Ønsker dig alt det bedste, my love😍
Kys og kram, Nina