C’mon, people. Which all-time, all-purpose PR mantra is it going to be? – SCN Encourager

Maybe the awesome assembly at NSPRA 2015 can figure it out.

Before anyone goes ahead and gets the tattoo.

Sometimes  I can’t believe the corners I box myself into.

Last week I wrote about a number of the maxims we school communicators use.

I joked about how dangerous it was trying to select the all-time, all-purpose #1 mantra out of the pack.

While I was kidding around then (of course!) – I now find myself slipping into a controversy.

My contention that “CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING” is apparently stirring up some opposition.

“Hey, Tom,” one reader responded. “You’re wrong. The #1 mantra has nothing to do with context. I just read that “TIMING IS EVERYTHING.”

“Oh yeah?” I emailed back. “What representative of the ridiculous told you that?”

“You did! You knucklehead! In your Encourager at the end of May!”

Dang.

I gotta start archiving what I write better.

Clearly, my memory is no longer covering my back like it used to.

It’s humiliating to get caught smack dab in the middle of a back-and-forth spat of my own making.

And it’s really uncomfortable when I have good friends on both sides of the vast Context is Everything and Timing is Everything divide.

Maybe one of the high-powered action teams at the annual NSPRA Seminar in Nashville this week will respond to my urgent request for an immediate hearing and binding arbitration.

If the powers-that-be at NSPRA are willing to step into this fray, I’m more than willing to accept their decision, regardless of whether it elevates and establishes “timing” above “context” or vice-versa.

So, until I hear back from NSPRA, I’ll do what every nimble school communicator does when stalled before a crossroad, struggling to decide between one course or another.

I’ll find a totally different path.

My guess is that you’d do the same.

I like how school communicators are consistently “Plan C” kind of people.

AND… you know what this means?

“Whatever works!” is now our new #1 mantra.

You can mark it down as official.

At least until NSPRA delivers its final ruling.

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