Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Employee communicators are more liberal than PR people

06.16.2010 by David Murray // 2 Comments

That's the crux of an argument I made a few years ago in a column in Ragan's now-defunct Journal of Employee Communication Management.

Wanting to rerun the column at Ragan.com, Ragan editors asked me if I stood by the sentiment.

Sure, I said.

Actually, I wasn't sure at all.

But I was interested in the debate.

Have a read and weigh in here or there.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // conservative, employee communications, idealistic, Journal of Employee Communication Management, liberal, PR people, Ragan

The danger of the misreverence that social media breeds

05.12.2010 by David Murray // 14 Comments

For several years after I broke into this business, I was afraid to call Roger D'Aprix on the phone, because he was a living legend of employee communication. A lot of the practitioners I was interviewing told me he actually taught them how to think about their job.

Finally I called him and we talked and he didn't bite; he gave me a genial interview. Maybe I had been silly to wait so long. But probably, too, the waiting had prepared me to interview D'Aprix more carefully and intelligently.

Eventually, D'Aprix honored me by writing a chapter in a book I edited, and a regular column for the Journal of Employee Communication Management, which I'd founded for Ragan. Now, he serves as the senior judge on the E2E Communication Awards, which I chair.

And over the years, we actually became friends—me as a stander upon his shoulders, he (I think) an occasional admirer of my writing. And, even better, we liked each other, reveling in the occasional chance for a drink or lunch, and exchanging occasional e-mails that were always friendly and trusting and warm.

And then I check my Facebook page and I see this, on the right-hand column.

Roger D'Aprix

Help him find his friends.

Suggest friends for him.

Why is Roger D'Aprix on Facebook? Surely, because he wants to remain relevant. But I don't want to see him on there, because I want to remain reverent.

I see all the democratizing upside of Facebook and other social media. We're each our own carnival barker now. But how will we organize a profession—or a society—without reverence, and reverence's conjoined twin, irreverence?

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // Facebook, friends, Journal of Employee Communication Management, Roger D'Aprix

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