With all the chatter about ghost blogging, ghost writing and otherwise ghostifying in the blogosphere last week, I’ve been thinking about how this applies to what you’re reading right now. What would you think if I told you I haven’t been writing my own blogs this whole time? That whole story about
wearing the Headless Horseman costume in our staff meeting? True, but someone else put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard?) and hashed out a blog about it. Or what if I told you Experience Manager Adam was too busy
actually making 25 gallons of apple butter to write about it, so I wrote it for him?
Let’s be honest: none of that would make sense, and it’s not true. First, who would write a blog for a marketing assistant? Second, Adam obviously would have made at least 50 gallons of apple butter.
Joking aside, when Lindsay Manfredi, ghost blogger and founder of
Linzstar, Inc., brought up the topic on
her own blog last week, the Indy-ghost-blogging pot was officially stirred. Comments, blogs in response and enough tweets to feed a small twitterverse ensued—and for all these I am, in the spirit of the forthcoming holiday, thankful. They got me thinking. Would I ghost blog? Would anyone ever let me? (Probably not…) However, whether you enjoy and make a living ghost blogging, like Manfredi, or contest it’s lying unless there’s some identification of who the actual authors are, like
TrendyMinds PR pro Elizabeth Friedland explained in
her follow-up blog, I have to ask: does it even make sense for your company?
And the fact is that at Conner Prairie, on this staff blog, it doesn’t. Do I ghost write? Of course. Just last Friday I composed a memo addressed to our employees that was signed with someone else’s name. I’ll do the same when I submit an award nomination soon that will come from someone who didn’t write it.
But when it comes to our blog, each post is so personal, so representative of the experiences of each individual, I don’t believe anyone could express those better than the person who encountered them. I’m not saying anything positive or negative about the quality or reach of our content. In fact, I’m not even saying anything about my personal views on ghost writing and ghost blogging. I am saying you can count on this blog to share stories from different parts of the prairie, written by the person whose name is stamped at the bottom.
What do you think? What level of transparency would you expect or insist from Conner Prairie’s blog? From other companies’ blogs? What about internal communications or media relations?
School is back in session, days are shorter and cooler and the Alliance ladies have dipped the last caramel apple. Being new to Conner Prairie, I thought that the days of kids running about and the balloon flying high were finished for 2009. Imagine my surprise this morning when around 10am that I heard high pitched joyful voices and then at lunch saw the balloon soaring above the welcome center. Little did I know that Conner Prairie remains vibrant and active during the fall months.
Later in the day I received an e-mail (what timing!) telling me all about what is going on at Conner Prairie this fall. Follow the North Star, Conner Prairie by Candlelight and the Gingerbread Village and just a few of the things happening. Knowing that the Gingerbread Village was soon to appear in the welcome center took me back to my childhood and seeing the Gingerbread Village for the first time with my mother and brother.
At the ripe ago of 10 I had never seen such a display of confectionary wonderment and whimsy. I was rendered speechless at the sight of houses, and big houses at that, made entirely out of candy, cookies and other sugary delights. I studied the details and remember asking my mother many questions ‘Is the door made out of candy too? What about the sidewalk? What about the trees?’ She was very patient and her answer was the same to every question, ‘Yes, that is made of candy too.’ Going to see the Gingerbread Village became a great tradition for mother, brother and I. We always came to see it early in the season and it felt like to the kick off to Christmas preparation. Our visits to see the Gingerbread Village each year usually kicked off cookie baking time at my house… my mom was smart to sub cookie baking for what I really wanted to do, build a three foot tall Victorian gingerbread house with gables galore and an Oreo slate roof.
I am delighted to know that this tradition lives on at Conner Prairie, that children still walk though and are amazed at structures made entirely out of sweets and things you can eat. I am excited to visit the exhibit often this December, after all it will be right downstairs, and hopefully someone will ask me if the windows are made out of candy.
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