I have a hard time buying the idea that Nashville is the seventh most dangerous city in the U.S., as a research company lately announced.

I realize that the company used data to come to its conclusions (which is the respectable thing to do), but I still have a hard time believing that Nashville is more dangerous than Houston, which placed tenth on the list of most dangerous cities above 500,000 in population. I’ve been to both cities, and I’m not buying it.

I think part of the problem lies in how cities are categorized. For example, according to the study (and the U.S. Census, depending on how data is presented) Nashville is larger than St. Louis and Atlanta. This is because cities are classified according to their literal population data within their city limits rather than by the population of their metropolitan areas. Does anyone really think Nashville is larger than Atlanta? I don’t. (Atlanta did rank tenth on the list of most dangerous cities with populations of 100,000 to 499,000, for what it’s worth.)

Further muddying the waters, the report separately lists the safest and most dangerous metropolitan areas. Nashville, assuming it is included in this count, doesn’t even make the top 25 most dangerous metropolitan areas, but Jackson, Tenn., does. I love Nashville, but does anyone really think it is safer than the considerably smaller city of Jackson? Again, I sure don’t. Detroit is the most dangerous metropolitan area and the second most dangerous city, and that makes sense anecdotally, too. But is Macon, Ga., more dangerous than Houston?

The study also omits Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, because some of its crime statistics don’t translate adequately for the report. (This is apparently an ongoing omission.)

I think this study is useful and hopefully will spur discussions of how to make communities, including Nashville, safer, but I won’t be looking to it for an accurate assessment of safety in our cities.

The Wall Street Journal has a thought-provoking story today on public relations as it relates to blogging. Here’s a quote from John Bell, an Ogilvy employee who is quoted in the article:

“The interesting thing about digital influence is that control is the wrong word. You can’t really control everything. What we can do is get involved in the conversation. When we’re [dealing with] bloggers for instance, our best strategy is to start to talk them as fellow bloggers. Many of us are bloggers, myself included.”

I like the use of the words “fellow bloggers” because I feel like bloggers have a high sensitivity toward deception and inauthenticity. Communicating with a blogger only works if you are sincere about it, I think, if you’re being proactive and if you’re coming to him or her with something that is legitimately suitable for their blog. If you’re just trying to blast your message out, it isn’t going to succeed.

Participating in the conversation is the appropriate way to dive in, too, I think. It will only work if you’re willing to participate and willing to give up the control Bell mentions above. That lack of control is what gives blogging its credibility. Giving up control and being open and honest are essential behaviors, in my opinion. That’s the same advice I give anyone who’s about to interact with traditional media, so in that sense I guess new and old media share some similarities after all. This bit of advice is straight out of kindergarten, but that means it’s pretty solid advice.

“As marketers, we believe in and support the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s ethics guidelines, which boil down to: Be honest. Be transparent. Don’t trick people.”

If we all did that, this would be a much easier world to call home.