About Wordbone

Wordbone the Blog: Wordbone is a student of the word, digging up the bones, writing down the bones and burying a few new ones better forgotten.

Chosen. I am chosen to study. When I achieve them, I may claim a respected academic credential, cutting-edge tools and a high caliber professional network in public relations. The program is seamlessly constructed with utility of form, rock-solid content, and most valuable, mobility – the potential to repurpose acquired skills across sectors for diverse employers. Eager to fill gaps in formal training since completing a business administration certificate, I am already awake to the ripple effect of a word and the image that shifts human behaviour. My energy and my beginner’s mind are honed to pursue excellence in this crucible of intense study.

Navigating

To the profession of public relations, I offer the work ethic of an enthusiastic immigrant employed from the age 12, the creativity of an artist who visualizes the unseen, the heart of a writer articulate in unspoken truths and the nurturing hands of a mother, ready to sooth and steady with boundless compassion. To this profession I also bring practical talents like the ability to walk in a client’s shoes, evidence of sustainable strategic solutions in past leadership roles and a focused motivation that is hard-wired to serve vulnerable peoples. Storyteller from birth, I am ghostwriter and wordsmith.

Decades of wordsmithing for family, business, non-profit councils, arts groups, government and technology organizations have led me here, to this program. Creating messages for regional, health, aboriginal and cultural communities, I’ve invented paths where none existed, found resources and leveraged assets to connect audiences with services they needed. Why did I go forward blindly into a field where I knew no giants on whose shoulders I could stand? Why did I risk security when no proof of future benefits existed? Insatiable curiousity and a knack for envisioning and weighing options led me to trust that when needed, the right teacher will come. One Saturday morning, that teacher entered my classroom and opened my Pandora’s Box, a plethora of questions. Media reports facts. But what quantifiable influence shifts a person down a continuum toward or away from an opinion? What motivates? What precipitates action?

A national journalist once told me that his colleagues could not be influenced; news is unbiased, balanced. My beginner’s experience as marketer proved otherwise. Often, what is left out shapes story. Moreover, when you lift the veil to expose the visceral guts of an issue how and when the audience prefers it, you can navigate the soft common ground between polarized opinions. To succeed in shifting or repositioning an issue, an idea must gradually take up more valuable room and live rent-free in a human mind.

So, how do you coax IT developers out of their monosyllabic caves? How do you collaborate with service providers and support communities snared by groupthink and fear of change? You crawl into those caves, until you see with their eyes. You scan and lock on specific target needs. And if you are skillful and lucky, you unearth the potential in those you serve and sharpen the tools each needs to excel. Facilitating others’ successes means demands to volunteer increase, but fortunately, so does understanding about when to stoke fires and when to simply be the doorman, present and silent. Truly, you get far more back than you give.

Life challenges have also brought priceless gifts that far outweighed losses. Whether lost on a heaving oceanliner on the Atlantic, or lost in the halls of justice, I’ve always found my way by stopping and finding my voice. Occasionally I have stepped on the tail of the tiger and now carry a ferocious strength along side a quiet purr within me. A life-long learner, I sniff the air and cock my ear to intuit and prepare for what comes. A tracker by trade, I interpret signs, mark trails and test waters to reach safe harbour. I prepare to serve as a public relations navigator with an exceptional agency or non-profit organization. I look forward to the day, that I will be equipped to share priceless public relations roadmaps with those that need them most.