Unleashed VC is a blog's best friend

But even this apparent minutiae is important: you need to understand how your grand visions (some bloggers might unkindly say, hallucinations) fit in with realities. And just maybe you can do something to get these irritating problems fixed.

Like C.J. Cregg, university public relations and marketing people will raise their hands in horror at the thought of a blogging VC. They fear we will stray off-message, or become embroiled in some hideous controversy. But while branding and strong messages are crucial, they are not going to seduce students and staff who know how to uncover what they need to know.

To be frank, a great logo and a stirring motto mean little in these digital days when people can set up a blog or chat site and ask: "What is X university really like?"

There is a growing expectation that we should use the technology available to us, and that not to use it can itself be a bad marketing decision.

However, it is not just about marketing. The blog forms an integral part of my website www.vc.mq.edu.au, which also includes access to speeches, newspaper articles, podcasts and videos. Taken together, it represents a significant part of my life as an academic. My blogging life kicked off on September 5 last year with a longish piece on the vagaries of ranking universities. It attracted no responses.

Recently, however, I blogged about whether Macquarie staff should follow our students and move to Gmail. In came a large number of replies, all of them well crafted and well argued. Most of them agreed that Gmail would be preferable to our existing system. I also learned about many staff who are struggling with our existing email.

I have also been provided with considerable technical information (some accurate, some not), and heard the voices of those who disagree with me. A post in which I argued that academics should, for the sake of developing a more sustainable university, move into sustainable offices sparked a heated exchange pointing out the errors in my argument: "My understanding of successful buildings suggests that the best way for them to work is to plan around users rather than to use around a plan" was one reply that neatly summed up the opposition.

Not long after I began blogging there arose one of those "bad news" stories that tested my resolve.

Macquarie University has a goal to become one of Australia's leading research institutions, and we are well on the way. But in last year's Times Higher Education Supplement - QS World University Rankings, Macquarie dropped from 82 to 168 in international rankings and from seventh to ninth among Australian universities. Basically, different criteria of measurement were used. Previously, the number of international students had a large impact on the rankings; but this criterion was given less weight in this year's ranking. This change in methodology impacted adversely on Macquarie.

I explained this in one of my posts, emphasising what those of us who work in universities already know - that universities are too clunky to change dramatically from year to year - but the facts made little difference to many respondents who were determined to revel in schadenfreude.

This is an example of why C.J. Cregg threatened to smother Josh Lyman. It could be argued that raising the issue of rankings in my blog gave more oxygen to the story, which might have gone away sooner had there not been this other platform to prolong the discussion. But would it really have gone away?

It seems to me that people would form an opinion in any case, regardless of the existence of the blog. At least I was able to present the facts of the situation and leave it to people to make up their own minds.