Why we need to be able to talk to anybody

I am a staff member. I conducted a podcast where I interviewed three
student bloggers about their visions of emerging technology in
education. That is what got me in trouble. I was told not to podcast
conversations with students even if I do it off campus, on my own time,
with my own equipment (and we are all consenting adults.) This is my
response:

We need to include everybody, and exclude nobody, in the
conversation for it to work and be real. When you isolate any group,
whether it be students, staff or faculty and try to prevent them from
talking to each other you destroy the power of the conversation to help
your organization.

I keep pointing to the Cluetrain Manifesto. It is about turning
markets upside down. Like markets, the university (by that I mean all
universities) are changing from being a top-down organization where the
administration controls the message through the power of their media
outlets, to a bottom-up organization where everybody contributes to the
conversation and nothing is hidden - because there is no place to hide!
Since the blogosphere/podosphere and tools like RSS makes it super
simple to broadcast globally, nothing can be hidden. (Of course, in my
opinion, for public universities nothing should be hidden.)

What does that mean for universities? In my opinion it means we have
to embrace transparency! Everybody needs to be free to talk to
everybody! When it comes to the conversation all voices (like all IP
adresses) are equal. The workplace hierarchy is separate from
conversational equality. It has to be the audience, not the institutions
that choose the voices to listen to. The conversation really starts
working when university presidents, deans, chairs, professors, staff
(including custodians and the folks who work in the admissions office)
and students are all free to blog, podcast, comment, trackback and link
to each other as well as talk together on podcasts.

Can you imagine how those conversations can create new and exciting
solutions to vexing problems we have and can enrich the learning
experience at the university?

I can!