One of the documents in the UUA Board of Trustees meetings packet is the Openness Implementation Committee Report (PDF). It notes some limitations to their transparency work.
For example, the Congregations Come First (CCF) Task Force web page does not indicate when or where it will meet. In an interesting attempt at openness, the CCF created a blog, linked from their web page. However, there has been only one comment posted since last June. (page 2)
Did anyone know this blog exists? Apart from a rude and very funny joke — I’ll not repeat it here — from a colleague-blogger, I’ve wouldn’t have known of the blog (I had since forgotten about it) and have not heard anything about the CCF otherwise. There are, for the record, three posts on it (one of which is a committee photo and the newest post was from last June) and eleven comments, some with well thought out questions.
Institutional openness (to ideas) and transparency (of process and information) is terribly important. This committee seems likely to fold at the end of this year; perhaps this isn’t the sort of thing that can be handled internally.
If there’s a task the common Unitarian Universalist blogosphere can hold — and something that would benefit every constituency and interest group — is applying continual pressure about Unitarian Universalist internal politics and asking for clarification.
I first noticed the blog on June 16, 2006, and added it to my guide to UU blogs (perhaps inadequately in the Congregational Development section) in July 2006. It’s also aggregated at UUpdates, but that only works to a site’s advantage if it features frequent posts.
Like annually?
I wonder if the blog was an experiment but turned out not to be the channel the group decided to use. The Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee also tried a blog, but I think only one or two members of the committee ever posted anything.
At the General Assembly this year, I’m speaking at two workshops on the Web. One is focused specifically on blogs. Part of what I’ll be asking — and trying to formulate a few proposals about — is this: When is a blog the right tool to use, and how can blogs be a useful component of a successful communications plan?
At the moment, the number and variety of UU blogs is making it increasingly difficult to “keep up.” I perceive a growing need for specialized tools or aggregators — not to mention promotional tactics designed to help promote low-traffic but high-value blogs and other websites.