Posts Tagged ‘Young Professional’

Chris Clarke has been under a bit of fire lately for a less-than-inflammatory post about the recent breakup of Joseph Jaffe’s Crayon. In recent post on PR Works, David Jones wonders if

“younger bloggers in the PR and Marketing space (are) doing themselves and their reputations harm by taking their 1-3 years of experience in the working world, running it through their “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” filter, and writing about things on their blogs they can’t possibly have developed the sophistication of thought to opine on credibly.”

Reflecting on that and the whole brouhaha surrounding Chris’ post about Crayon and I’m reminded about a few posts I wrote a few weeks ago that were fairly critical of both Shel Holtz and MyRagan.

Everyone will make mistakes along the way. I could have certainly been more tactful about my choice of wording, and Chris Clarke has also reconsidered his original words (while providing some excellent advice).

However, I’m slightly disappointed at the suggestion that young folk like us shouldn’t speak up at all. While we might overstep our boundaries as we learn along the way, I like to think that we are also able to provide a unique perspective that is otherwise lacking amongst those with years of agency and blogging experience. I feel similarly about those new to blogging and social media. While their etiquette might not be up to standards, the ability to provide an outsider (or youthful) point of view is valuable enough to warrant their inclusion in the conversation. As David Jones writes, I too worry “that this space can be a little too self-congratulatory/back-slapping/up-with-people Utopia where everyone’s a winner.”

For more on this, Paull Young has an interesting post rounding up some of the links discussing these issues.

Cheers,

-Parker