Tony Williams, the esteemed mayor of Washington DC, has joined the blogosphere. On the 15th of August Mayor Williams launched Mayor’s Blog. He posted a couple of paragraphs and told his constituents to "stay tuned." Expectations were set that the new blog would connect the Mayor with the citizens of DC.
The people chatted; they welcomed Mayor Williams to the blogosphere,
expressed their concerns and even offered the Mayor blog advice: need
an RSS feed, filtering comments is not transparent, read other DC
blogs and don’t forget to remind people it’s really you.
And then they waited. And waited. And waited. The people were getting
annoyed. Where was their leader? Where was the connection? "When
are you going to say something interesting, helpful, provocative or
something? So far it’s a snooze with a long time between snores."
Mayor Williams came back a week later with Star Wars humor. Yoda would say, "a weekly paragraph will not an exciting blog make." Then he really got serious and set expectations for himself….
Generally speaking, I will try to be cogent and consistent. By this I mean: first, providing you observations you can’t find elsewhere in over 100,000 pages of the website; and second, stating the same, take your pick – distinctive or disgusting comments regardless of the audience and the circumstances.You should know my position on an issue, whether you agree with it or not. Blase press releases will not a …YODA!
And expectations for the readers … the blog is not a service line but righteous indignation or comforting, supportive comments are welcomed.
Mayor Williams, I think you’re getting this blog stuff….go forth unto the blogosphere and prosper.
A lesson for all bloggers – "a weekly paragraph will not an exciting blog make."
Article in the Washington Post (free subscription required).
One should keep an open mind, I suppose, but how many times have people started blogs proclaiming what they were going to write about — what the blog was going to be a “place for” — only to fall totally silent? I think it’s best if all bloggers, particularly now that it’s become so commonplace, begin their blog by, well, blogging — not talking about what they’re going to be blogging about. Tony Williams got some press for his meager two early entries, but imagine how much more press he would have gotten had he started right off with an interesting story about a challenge he’s facing (and lord knows DC has lots of those). Here’s hoping Tony really does get it and starts showing what he’s saying.
Comment by Kevin Holland — August 25, 2005 @ 7:08 am
As a DC-ite (yes I live in the District of Columbia) I confess to more than a bit of skepticism when I first heard about the mayor’s new blog. You’d have to live here to understand the depth of cynicism that many denizens of D.C. feel when it comes to our local government. But… I just took a look at Tony Williams’ blog and it’s great! Yes, he should post more often. But his two postings thus far have resulted in about 100 comments. These apparently have been posted “as is.” Some are garbled and ungrammatical. Some are marvelously articulate. Already they touch on a host of topics near and dear to DC residents: (in no particular order) parking tickets, the homeless, historic preservation, racism, bringing baseball back, etc. Mr. Mayor, listen to your readers! You’ve got enough fodder here for a dozen posts.
Comment by Debbie Weil — August 25, 2005 @ 10:01 am
I’m with Debbie, what a great way to have plenty to write about. I think I’ll run for Mayor.
Comment by Jim Turner — August 25, 2005 @ 11:31 am
Interesting to see that Mayor Williams has not taken his own suggestion to heart that “a weekly paragraph will not an exciting blog make.â€? The last post he made was Monday 8/22 it is now Sunday 8/28. Wonder if his constituents consider that a broken promise and wonder if that might result in a bit of a credibility loss. Of course his remark “I’ll be back later with more” didn’t specify when, so I guess there’s still political wiggle room.
Comment by Toby Bloomberg — August 28, 2005 @ 9:36 am