Last August, a group of Sig Ep alumni decided to start a weblog, or "blog" to be an unofficial chronicle of the Fraternity and a place for all sides of Sig Ep - the good, the bad, and the ugly - to be aired out. Our expectation was and is that increased communication will allow us all to make our "Lifetime Experience" a better one. All of us have a history of service to the fraternity measured in decades. Our level of participation has variously included Alumni Board, Chapter Counselor, District Governor, national committees, and OGH awards. We have seen and done it all.
In a real sense, this site fills a gap that is not provided by the HQ site. The HQ site has vast amounts of static information - Bylaws, Procedural forms, Information about the various Fraternity programs, OGH & Citation lists, and much more. Our site, on the other hand, is as dynamic as we can make it. The nature of this blog is to have a running, flow of focused and timely information. We focus on finding online news about the local chapters and making that news available in one place. Sometimes it is informative, sometimes silly, and sometimes tragic, Occasionally we even find an overlooked gem from HQ. We see ourselves not as competition but as complementary to the HQ site. Our site is available in an RSS(Atom) feed and our "Blogroll" of linked sites can be copied and used on other web sites.
In addition to finding items in the news about various Sig Ep chapters and news of general interest to fraternities we also decided to occasionally publish opinion pieces. Hopefully these posts spur discussion about values and about the operations of our leadership. In the tradition of the Federalist Papers, most of us have adopted a pseudonym. The purpose of using these adopted names is to separate principles from personalities. The cachet of a person's reputation (or lack of one) will not then influence how an editorial is perceived. An idea or opinion should stand or fall on its own merit and not by who says it. Additionally, some of us have hard won experience with retaliation and alienation when we have stepped away from the "Party Line". Since we planned to be independent from the start we felt discretion to be the better part of valor. In point of fact, we do have a "registered agent" signed up for access to the SigEp-Talk group.
By all reasonable measures, the blog has been a fantastic success. From a standing start last August, we consistently have had at or above 100 visits and 160 page views a day for the last month. That is roughly the equivalent of every member of SigEp-Talk checking the blog every week. When you consider first, we are looking at a limited audience and second, the only "marketing" we have done is an occasional post on SE-T it speaks well to the word-of-mouth, viral nature of the blog. Many of the "Chapter of the Week" sites as well as some individuals have added us to their links list and we have returned the favor to increase the community of connections. One example of cross pollination of ideas is the idea one chapter had to raise money by selling "LiveStrong" type bracelets. The post of the news story makes it an "AHA!" idea for any of the people who follow the site.
However, if we didn't have someone upset with us we would wonder if we were working hard enough. Recently, we posted an editorial piece that commented on the gap between resolutions passed by Conclave and their implementation. We received - indirectly - a response from a "highly placed" person at Sigma Phi Epsilon Headquarters. He sent it to a suspected participant, who forwarded it to us. (Note to HQ - the 'known troublemakers' are not the only ones who feel alienated.) The HQ guy took us to task for, among other things, having the temerity to suggest that Richmond was less than forthcoming with records of the Board of Directors meetings. ["...anyone who wants to receive NBD minutes can have their name added to the list Jan Brammer keeps at Zollinger House (jan.brammer@SigEp.net)..."] What he did not mention is that nowhere on the web site nor in any publication was that pithy tidbit of information available. Well, now you know. Drop Jan a line and she will be happy to add you to the list. He also insisted that a promised revamping of the HQ web site will cure all ills. We heard a variation of that promise at the CLA's too. In the software industry this is called "vaporware" - the software equivalent of the classic "the check's in the mail" is "we'll have that fixed in the next release". As has been noted elsewhere on this blog, a makeover of the HQ web site is desperately needed and we will welcome the wonderful things that are claimed for it - if and when it happens.
Now, we do not want to get into a schoolyard brawl over who does what better - but... If you do not agree with a post then by all means call us on it. Do it in the comments so your rebuttal is connected to the original post. If you have something to say that needs its own space then send it on and we will put it up as a guest post. Do your worst. We are all grownups. Years of service to the Fraternity have given us thick skin.
Publius (at least for today, anyway)
