Welcome to Spring Semester Students

Welcome to the George Washington University Issues Management blog. The purpose of this blog is two-fold. First, it is designed as a mechanism but which the teacher and students can opine upon current issues that have relevance to the topics and techniques being discussed in our course. Secondly, it is hoped that this blog will familiarize students with blogging, which is an increasingly significant factor in issues management campaigns.

In many ways, this blog is an experiment. My hope this that it will be a "no holds barred" forum in the true spirit of the blogosphere. While it is a graded activity, grades will not given based on the content of posts. Grammatical and spelling errors will be ignored. Provocative is good. Participation will be graded on a pretty formulaic basis. A simple one sentence comment most weeks will earn a B. More active involvement will generate an A and no involvement, a C. We'll evaluate as we go along, maybe bring the discussion into the classroom, if appropriate. I will also welcome comments about the path we're taking in the course and make corrections as needed.

I look forward to a lively course, both here and in the classroom.