Who me? A blogger?

Let’s just say that I’m not the most likely candidate to write a blog. I don’t read them in general (except for the ones on cooking that Kristen recommends to me), and I’m not cyber-inclined. But here’s the history.

About three years ago at our office retreat, Fletcher’s web-mistress, Liz (since departed for new vistas in California), told us about a new phenomenon — admissions offices were starting blogs. We all stared at our shoes, and pretended not to hear her suggestion for an additional to-do-list item.

But Liz is persuasive and, in the end, we agreed to the proposed experiment, deciding to share the responsibility for posting. Anyone who has worked in an office can predict how that went — maybe five posts in the year. At the next summer’s retreat, Liz admonished us that if we weren’t going to do it right, we shouldn’t do it at all. More staring at shoes.

By then, though, we knew that more and more applicants were shying away from contact with the office before they sent an application. We couldn’t ignore the fact that the blog would be a way to “talk” to some of those applicants, as well as others. We decided to carry the experiment forward another year, and I agreed to manage the blog. Now, two years later, writing for it is one of my favorite ways to spend a morning.

Along the way, I needed to gain basic familiarity with a blog publishing system. We’re using WordPress, and I’m gradually learning how to find the information I need. But the operative word is “gradually.” Since the job I’m paid for is admissions work, not IT work, I need to keep to a minimum the amount of time I spend tinkering with the blog. So no bells and whistles for me.

But, in a small step, I’ve been playing with images and plan to post some soon. And, if you’re on the front page of the blog, glance off to the left of this post. You’ll see that (thanks to Michael-John, my new WordPress guru), you can now review past posts by clicking on the category. That way, when you want to peruse our handy admissions tips (for example), you can find them all in one relatively neat little folder. Happy perusing to all!

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My 17-year-old turns 18 today. Happy Birthday, Josh!