Why We’ve Joined in Founding the
International Association of Online Communicators
How It Started
Fittingly, I met Steve O’Keefe online when I was doing research for my thesis in 1996. He was one of three emerging leaders in the online community who so generously gave their time for email and telephone discussions in my study of Web site promotion. Steve and I continued to stay in contact by phone and email, sharing ideas and materials for practicing and teaching online communications.
We finally met in the flesh in March 2003, when Steve came to Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ as keynote speaker for a Technology and PR seminar sponsored by Rowan and PRSA/PRSSA. It was in a South Street grill, over a Philly cheesesteak and beer, that we agreed that we would work together to see if we could get our peers interested in forming an association. We traded many emails and phone calls and finally this fall drafted the mission statement you see here.
Why I’ve Committed to IAOC
For me, doing the groundwork in building a place where online communicators can meet and collaborate is a natural progression in my own online experience. It’s not only payback for all the time and help I’ve received from so many of you. It is also driven by a need that I expect many of us are feeling: we want an organization we can call our own.
- We’ve all developed wonderful virtual relationships over the years. But cementing and growing relationships requires personal contact. We need a forum where we can meet face to face.
- We’ve all seen an explosion of good and new ideas emerge from online. But development of careful thought and real learning still benefits from ink on paper. We need a journal where useful questions, theoretical and practical, can be asked and answered.
- We’ve all benefited from the opportunities that Internet technology, by providing a means for open and free communication, has brought to our world. We need an organization that can help protect and nurture those freedoms we have won.
- We have all gained from learning and inventing together as an emerging community of communicators in this fast changing medium. We’ve learned as much by sharing news of our mistakes as of our successes. It is now time to help our colleges and universities catch up.
Letters of Support
When I showed the mission statement to my colleagues in Rowan’s Communications College, they responded with immediate and enthusiastic support. On the supporters page you will find statements of support from your online peers. If you’d like to add your own words of support, please add them to the comments field in our feedback form. Also be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and let us know if we can add you name to the growing list of those who say they are interested in helping the association take shape.
Message from Steve O'Keefe
For more on why and how IAOC came to be founded, please see the welcome from Steve O'Keefe.
If you have questions or want to reach either Steve O’Keefe or me, just fill in the form with your contact information, and one of us will get back to you.
Don Dunnington
Director Business Communications and
Senior Web Manager, K-Tron International
Adjunct Professor, Rowan University
President, IAOC
