Internet and web – Page 83

The resignation over the weekend of President Obama’s green-jobs chief Van Jones should serve as a reminder to us that we are all public figures.

No, we’re not White House czars of any sort, and we’re not likely to be in the national spotlight. But on a microcosmic level, we are public figures. And like Jones, whose past controversies forced him to resign from the White House post, most of us in higher ed communications, marketing and PR positions aren’t subject to intense scrutiny when we are hired. There are no Senate confirmation hearings for a university spokesperson. Not even a Faculty Senate confirmation hearing.

But on our campuses and in our communities, we are in the public eye, and more frequently than many political appointees. We serve as campus spokespersons. We present at conferences. We share our expertise and our views in the social media sphere of blogs, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace. We post pictures on Facebook. Some of us freely choose to “thrust [our]selves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved,” and that, my friends, makes us “limited purpose public figures,” according to the legal definition.

I use the term “public” in a very broad sense. But the nature of the public space is changing, thanks to the always-on mediasphere. A savvy attorney could easily argue that any blogger or tweeter is a public figure to some narrowly defined segment of the public.

I’m a part of that sphere. And if you blog, tweet, Facebook, post on forums or otherwise partake in online conversations, so are you. You don’t have to be Tila Tequila — who recently has done a pretty good job of thrusting herself into the forefront of controversy — in order to be considered a public figure in the Internet age.

We should remember that.

Until yesterday, I thought Jack Dorsey (one of the triumvirate of Twitter founders, better known as @jack in tweetdom) was just another new-media success story.

*@jack, aka Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey*

But that was before I learned, via St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Deb Peterson’s blog post, that he once attended the university where I work, Missouri S&T. He attended here in the ’90s, back when we were the University of Missouri-Rolla. He studied computer engineering here, and chances are great that we crossed paths on campus.

I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know about this connection previously. I’m doubly embarrassed that another university (Webster University, based in his hometown of St. Louis) will present him with a major award next week, instead of us.

The PR guy in me hates missed opportunities.

But maybe, now that I know Jack was a student here, I can work to reconnect our campus with him. According to at least two higher ed colleagues on Twitter, Jack is technically an alumnus of our university. One said so publicly, the other privately, via direct message.

Anyway, I am now one of @jack’s kabillion followers on Twitter. I hope to one day meet the man personally.

Congratulations, Mr. Dorsey, on your award from Webster University. I only wish we’d connected with you sooner.

P.S. – I’m glad to read that you’re still a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

Update: Jack Dorsey just gave a shout out to Missouri S&T, exposing our Twitter site to more potential views than most of our media relations efforts ever would.