School superintendent Mark Stock, blogger

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Mark Stock is Superintendent of Schools for the Wawasee Community School Corporation and he has a weblog titled The Wawascene.

He contacted me last week because he’s doing a presentation on blogging at the AASA annual convention in March in New Orleans. He had an article in the May, 2006 issue of AASA’s The School Administrator titled “Blogging to my advantage: a superintendent discovers a new tool with unlimited possibilities for two-way connection with his community.”

The morning we spoke on the phone he had just posted an update to his blog from the local hospital because of school bus accident. I told him I was thrilled to see him do this because ‘near real-time blogging’ is an important element to making a leadership blog compelling for readers. And in a crisis situation, it’s a terrific way for leaders to be able to speak directly and quickly to their community/constituencies. A blog post in a crisis can offer accurate information, convey reassurance, and prevent as well as dispel rumors.

Mark’s blog is also a good example of writing with a “voice of authenticity.” I loved this little insertion in a recent post about special ed:

OK – now hang with me here. This is a crash course on statistics.

And here’s an example of what I call ‘strategic storytelling.’ It’s a gem: The day I became convinced that special needs students aren’t the only ones benefiting from being included.