Four years ago, I asked readers of the Beyond Branding Blog if they wanted to see me blog at my own space. The responses were all positive, and this blog was born.
   Earlier tonight, after being egged on by two friends, I posed the question on Twitter and Facebook: should there be a ‘Jack Yan for Mayor’ fan page on Facebook?
   Thirteen of you said yes, unopposed.
   As of now, not only is there a Facebook page to which you can show your support for my candidacy, but a site about my mayoral campaign.
   The latter is a bit more of a conventional take on a mayoral site, and I felt that Your Wellington wasn’t resonating so far out from the election.
   Your Wellington was set up as a site where civic issues were to be discussed and debated—sort of a prototype to how I expect to get your views should I be elected mayor. Since people do not have the time to attend council meetings, and fewer and fewer will peruse the public notices in a metropolitan newspaper, a blog is the ideal way to get feedback from citizens about issues that concern us.
   It’s also an ideal medium on to which we can put spending requests and other uses of ratepayers’ money, so there are no surprises. It encourages those causes that require the ratepayers’ help to put up much better arguments.
   I want to re-create transparency, adjusted for the modern era, and I can’t see any of my opponents even attempting to do this.
   The reality is that it is too early in the piece to be getting hard and heavy on the issues, and it’s more important for my campaign to focus on getting some traction and word of mouth right now.
   I was originally opposed to the idea of a fan page when it was raised. I said that if I got 5,000 friends, my Facebook page would become a fan page, anyway. What I really didn’t like was the wank of it all.
   I was also opposed to the idea of separating the person from the job: if I were to interact with people, it would always be as me. I didn’t want the mayoralty to change my accessibility or hide behind a separate page.
   But as was explained to me this afternoon, a Facebook fan page is not about me specifically. It is more about the practicality of putting all mayoral information in one place, and as there are a lot of Facebookers, why not meet them where they are?
   My campaign, after all, is about recognizing how we use media and the internet, and if I were to ignore Facebook users’ preferences, then I would be a big hypocrite.
   Thus, the fan page was born—as was the campaign site, which complements it.
   So now there are three sites: this one, which you already visit, with my regular thoughts; one specifically about my mayoral candidacy, which might be thought of as an extension to this one; and one about Wellington City’s issues, which we’ll continue building as we head toward election time.
   They tie together, I promise.
   Enjoy the new site and fan page. Please join if you see fit, and, if you feel so inclined, check out the latest downloadable graphics for the campaign (now including code so you can easily put it on to your blogs and websites).