Participation in social media has been hit-and-miss among the last several IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) chairs. Even with an existing chair’s blog available to them, eliminating the chore of starting a new blog from scratch, IABC’s president, Julie Freeman, has been more likely to post items than the chairs.

(Not that 16,000-strong membershipship has been clamoring to read a chair’s blog, mind you.)

Things are different for the 2008-09 term, though. London-based Barbara Gibson has bypassed the default chair’s blog and opened her own using IABC’s eXchange site. “Connecting the I’s” refers to the four “I’s” on which Barbara is focusing during her term: international, influence, inspiration and individuals. (She discusses each of these in the July installment of IABC’s podcast, Cafe2Go.)

As if a steady stream of posts (16 in July) isn’t enough, the blog also features Barbara’s most recent tweets and a link to her Flickr photostream (with only one photo so far, but it is a photo that tips the cute scale). A recent blog post shares Barbara’s first experiment on Utterz; another shows her in the Lively room she created after hearing about the Google virtual world from Neville. Her “about” page features a TripAdvisor map pintpointing where she’s been. And her profile page links to her LinkedIn profile.

The blog itself isn’t pulling many punches. In a post from today, for example, Barbara says she’s been hearing why IABC members haven’t been moving toward their accreditation. A task force is exploring improvements to the ABC process, but Barbara—noting that the discussion should be more open—has invited comment on her blog. On the first day the post appeared, one of Barbara’s fellow Brits—Russell Grossman—opined that there isn’t much value to having ABC appear after your name, a comment that provoked a response from three accredited members.

I know this is no big deal for a lot of people. For someone like Chris Brogan, it’s a starter pack. But it’s a first for an IABC chair, and from where I sit, that’s a big deal.

Barbara’s willingness to engage the membership—and communicators at large—is refreshing. After all, you can only travel to so many chapter events every year, and even then you’re only connecting with members who turn out for the event. Given skyrocketing travel costs and the demands on the chair’s time, reaching out through the virtual channels of her blog, Twitter, and other social media tools could provide valuable lessons for IABC and leadership by example for leaders and members alike.

Waytago, Barbara.