By Griff Wigley, on April 5th, 2009
By Griff Wigley, on March 9th, 2007
 Yesterday, I spent an hour at the James Gang Hideaway visiting with Thor Henning Lerstad, News Director for the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK). He’s visiting Minnesota this week to “study best-practice examples of Consultative/Participatory/Public Journalism.”
(Last September, I spent an hour at the James Gang Hideaway visiting with a colleague of his, Jørgen Jensen, a journalist with Danmarks Radio (DR), Denmark’s national broadcasting corporation. He also wanted to learn about all the citizen journalism/community media/civic blogosphere stuff we’ve been doing here in Northfield for the past decade.)
Northfield.org’s Anne Bretts was kind enough to pick him up in the Twin Cities and bring him to Northfield for the day… and return him. How’s that for Minnesota hospitality? I brought him to lunch at Northfield Rotary (“Hey, everybody, a real live Norwegian named Thor!”).
I’ve included Thor’s email to me and Anne below in case others are interested in what he’s up to. Now we just need a similar visit from a journalist in Sweden to complete aScandinavia trifecta and maybe top it off with visits from journalists in the other Nordic countries of Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
Continue reading Scandinavia and Northfield’s culture of citizen journalism
By Griff Wigley, on November 9th, 2006
  
I was invited to a Blandin Foundation brainstorming session today on the topic of rural communities and the development of broadband infrastructure, online content, and civic engagement. We met at the home of Bill Coleman in Mahtomedi, where his mailbox and backyard wildlife (click photos to enlarge) made for a unique setting.
   
Left photo, L o R: Tim Erickson, e-democracy.org; Ann Treacy, Treacy Information Services; Bill Coleman, Community Technology Advisors Corp.; Bernadine Joselyn, Director of Blandin’s Public Policy and Engagement Program; Jane Leonard, Minnesota Rural Partners.
Left center: Becky LaPlant and Mary Magnuson, Program Assistants in Blandin’s Public Policy and Engagement Program; Steve Clift, Publicus.net.
Right center: Patrick Marx, recently a senior staffer at Blandin, now a consultant to them; and Jane (see above).
Right: Bill and Bernadine (see above). Click all photos to enlarge.
History and connections were rich. I’ve recently collaborated with Tim on a St. Paul edemocracy outreach project; with Steve on many issues and projects, including civic leadership blogging in the UK and the ReadMyDay project; Jane and Ann I’ve known since way back in the MRnet and gofast.net days — and Jane came to Northfield 18 months ago to speak at an NDDC forum on wi-fi. I’d not met Patrick but first heard about him from Sean Kershaw at the Citizens League (a blogging client) and more recently, because of his involvement and support of Bill Densmore and the Media Giraffe Project. He knew all about the Atwater video that Bill and I have been working on. But the most startling connection was when I mentioned how my involvement as the Salonkeeper with Utne Reader’s Neighborhood Salon Association back in the 90s was instrumental in the formation of Northfield Citizens Online and Northfield.org. Bernadine blurted out: “My mother joined an Utne Salon when they first started and their salon is still going on!” That’s 15 years and counting. Cool beans. One final mention: a tip of the blog hat to Mike O’Connor who couldn’t be there today and who was instrumental in my getting an invitation. Thanks, Mikey. All the way with Y2K!
By Griff Wigley, on September 19th, 2006
Explorer Will Steger spoke on global warming tonight to a crowd of almost 500 people at Bethel Lutheran Church here in Northfield, along with two colleagues, J. Drake Hamilton, Science Policy Director at Fresh Energy, and Alycia Ashburn with the Lutheran Coalition for Public Policy in Minnesota. Steger’s foundation has launched a project called Global Warming 101 which “… raises broad public awareness about global warming as witnessed through Will Steger’s polar expeditions.”
Back in 1993, two of my sons, Collin and Graham (then ages 16 and 12) accompanied Steger and fellow explorers to Yellowknife and the Arctic Circle for six weeks to help with the ham radio and internet communications for a training run for the International Arctic Expedition … ultimately held two years later. I was delighted to catch up with Will again. My wheels are turning already on how I could become involved in his next expedition, set for early next year.
  
L to R: Will Steger, J. Drake Hamilton, Alycia Ashburn.
  
L to R: Dan Kallman and the Bethel choir; Brianna Spittle and my daughter Gilly Wigley get a poster signed by Steger for a donation to the foundation; the audience at the booths in the vestibule at Bethel. Click photos to enlarge.
Will Steger’s presentation. Click to play. 33 minutes.
J. Drake Hamilton’s presentation. Click to play. 24 minutes.
By Griff Wigley, on September 12th, 2006
 I spent an hour this morning at the James Gang Hideaway visiting with Jørgen Jensen, a journalist with Danmarks Radio (DR), Denmark’s national broadcasting corporation. He works at their station in Bornholm. (See the Wikipedia entries on Bornholm and DR for more.)
Jørgen has been in Minnesota the past ten days, visiting with people and organizations involved in citizen journalism. He heard about Northfield Citizens Online and Northfield.org and wanted to hear from someone who was there as the beginning. I recorded our discussion and have uploaded it to Hipcast. If you’re interested in hearing it, let me know.
By Griff Wigley, on September 11th, 2006
Back in August, I met with Shelley Rose, President & CEO of LogIn. I got to know her many years ago when they were located in the Lowertown area of downtown St. Paul near where I worked at gofast.net.
I’ve done some search-related contract work over the years for them and among other things, they’re the people behind IACPnet, the online network for the International Association of Chiefs of Police – hence the photo of me with Shelley and the Brad Pitt-as-cop cutout above. (Click photo to enlarge.)
Since I’m a blogging coach to several leaders in law enforcement here in Minnesota (Dan Carlson, Rob Reynolds, Gary Smith, Mark Murphy) and have started working with Mike Alderson in the UK, I’m interested in exploring ways that I might work with LogIn and the IACP on leadership blogging. Shelley and I agreed to start scheming on ways for leadership blogging to have a presence at next year’s IACP annual conference.
By Griff Wigley, on August 22nd, 2006
 
Citizens League Executive Director and chief blogger Sean Kershaw (left) launched this morning’s Summer Policy series event titled The Future of the Web and Civic Engagement: What Happens When MySpace Meets Our Space? held at The Forum at Minnesota Public Radio. (Click photos to enlarge.)
I recorded the forum. Click play to listen. 1 hour, 5 minutes, 22 seconds.
I found myself a little disappointed with the event. I wanted to hear more stories… stories that would illustrate the what the future of the web could be for civic engagement, public problem-solving and policy-making. I don’t remember much about the discussion but I do remember two stories: Jean King’s story about Gov. Al Quie and Roger Moe; and Steve Borsch’s story about visiting the Eden Prairie public library.
I also was hoping to hear more about the forces — systemic or otherwise — that are both helping and impeding the constructive use of these Web 2.0 technologies in the public sphere. That would’ve generated more discussion about what steps could be taken by citizens, civic organizations, and yes, policy-makers to address these forces.
 
Left photo, L to R: moderator Jack Uldrich, panelists Jean LeVander King and Steve Borsch.
Right photo, L to R: panelists Garrick Van Buren,Tom Swain, and Jen Alstad.
  
During the post-event schmoozing, I had a chance to talk with (L to R) Steve Borsch, Steve Clift, and Garrick Van Buren. And then Mr. Clift and I retired to the MPR lobby to chat further in the way-cool audio-enhancing pod chairs. Amazingly easy to hear one another. And yes, that’s an apple core in my mouth.
Aug. 22 Update: Victoria Ford has a set on Flickr of 60 photos from the event.
Aug. 23 1 pm update: AAAARRRGGGGGHHHH!! I mistakenly deleted this blog entry earlier today and had to ask my beloved webhosting company, Tiger Technologies, to restore the site from a midnight backup. They’ve done it but two comments were lost so I’ve manually replaced them. Apologies to Steve and Mike.
By Griff Wigley, on August 10th, 2006
 
I took these photos of Tom Dawkins last week. (Click to enlarge.) He was one of presenters on the Innovative Ideas to Stir Citizens panel in Baltimore..
He’s the founder of Vibewire Youth Services in Australia and, according to this post on Steve Clift’s Dowire.org blog, this month he’s:
“… travelling around North America during August as part of a research trip to learn more about work being done around … digital/indie/youth media; online community; youth spaces (as in physical spaces, not virtual – specifically those designed to engender creative expression and/or enterprise development); digital arts/creativity; youth and citizenship; e-democracy.”
I just got an email from a UK colleague who I met in Budapest, Alice Chicken at 21Consultancy, alerting me to the fact that Tom just launched a weblog called tomd’s blog. In his initial post on Monday, he writes:
I’ve wanted to start a blog to give people, Vibewire.net members especially obviously, an insight into some of the background to Vibewire and our projects, a taste of some of the ideas floating around or projects which haven’t officially launched yet, more of a sense of the people behind the site and the Vibewire organisation and an opportunity for dialogue and feedback.
… in Baltimore last Thursday August 3, the day after I wearily arrived in the US. One of the sessions I went to was on ‘Leadership blogging’ (as opposed to perblogs, news blogs, opinion blogs, etc) by which he meant blogs kept by people in a leadership role (CEO, elected reprentatives, etc) which allow them to bring people into the decision-making process, to record a record of their thoughts, think through issues and so on. It all sounded exactly like what I’d been contemplated so I vowed to myself that at the next opportunity I really would start one this time.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Tom.
By Griff Wigley, on June 26th, 2006
 Tiger Technologies is a web hosting company based in Berkeley, California.
I’ve used them for all my own web sites and the vast majority of my client web sites (dozens) for over three years now.
New clients often ask me “Why TigerTech in California when you/we are here in the Upper Midwest?”
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They’ve been super reliable, with nary any downtime in three years.
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The internet routing (connection speed and latency) between Northfield, MN (where I am) and their server farm in the Bay area of California has always seemed to be faster than to server farms in the Twin Cities.
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They’re always cost-competitive.
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They’re big enough to have all the sever bells and whistles I need in a web host. (As of a year ago, they were hosting over 3,500 sites.)
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They’re very smart. I know some very knowlegeable geeks who are very impressed with them.
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They’re very personable. These people know how to convey friendliness, both via phone and email. I’m pretty clueless on server-related techie stuff and I’m never made to feel like a doofus.
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They are extremely responsive, both via phone and email, even on weekends and evenings.
Robert, Nicholas, Nami, and the rest of the team: I think of you as colleagues, not just staffers at a company who’s a provider/supplier. You’re the best.
By Griff Wigley, on May 19th, 2006
 I had coffee in Northfield this morning (at my corner office at the Goodbye Blue Monday Coffeehouse, natch) with long-time Minnesotan Steve Borsch — blogger, podcaster, and a Web 2.0 thinker/doer/collaborator.
Steve contacted me via email earlier this week after we both contributed some brainstorming emails via Sean Kershaw at the Citizens League. It turns out we have other Minnesota colleagues in common, including Patricia and Craig Neal at Heartland Circle, Mike O'Connor, and Eden Prairie City Manager Scott Neal.
Among the multiplicity of topics we discussed: how Web 2.0 technologies can improve the civic health of geographic communities. See Steve's recent blog posts, Web 2.0: Connecting people to dots and Lessons of Community for Web 2.0 for more on this issue. But more importantly, subscribe to his Connecting the Dots weblog and podcast to follow his thinking at it evolves. I'm going to enjoy getting to know him better and will look for ways to collaborate.
By Griff Wigley, on May 12th, 2006
 Last week I tagged along with Tim Erickson and St. Paul e-democracy colleagues (left) at the Lexington Outreach Library.
I took some photos and teamed up with Tim to record some audio for possible inclusion in a podcast. Click photos to enlarge and see 20+ photos in the edemocracy outreach photo album.
  
Left: library patron Robert McCaster and Tim Erickson;
Center: Alice Neve, Supervisor, Lexington Library and Kaltun Deriye, Somali Outreach Coordinator.
Right: Tim interviewing members of a Somali family
See 20+ photos in the edemocracy outreach photo album.
By Griff Wigley, on May 10th, 2006
I attended a Heartland Circle Happy Hour last night, courtesy of the firm's co-founders, Patricia Neal and Craig Neal. They hosted an informal gathering of some of their area members at the Enjoy! restaurant in Apple Valley. Click photos to enlarge.
 
Left: Yogiraj Achala, Vonda Vaden, Patricia Neal, Craig Neal, unidentified, Francois Paradeise, unidentified
Right: Mary Hamann-Roland, Matthew Rochte, Craig Neal
 
Left: Dave Labno, Don Thomas, Loretta Anderson, Russ Schoen, Myron Lowe
Right: Virginia Selleck, Cheryl Persigehl, Dave Labno, Don Thomas, Loretta Anderson
By Griff Wigley, on May 7th, 2006
 Last week I had a meeting at the Citizens League with Sean Kershaw, Executive Director, and Stacy Becker, Becker Consulting, who’s heading up the League’s Minnesota Anniversary Project (MAP 150).
We explored the variety of ways that tools like blogs, forums, salons, podcasts, etc. could be used for the project and they’ve invited me to submit a proposal.
I’ve got a long and satisfying history with the League, back to the late 80s and early 90s when Curt Johnson (now with Citistates and a client) was executive director.
By Griff Wigley, on March 5th, 2006
 John Reinan phoned me a couple of weeks ago, looking for an excuse to visit Northfield, the hometown of his alma mater, St. Olaf. Actually, he did have a grander purpose: picking my brain a bit about tech developments that I was involved with in my business and with Northfield.org as part of his new beat covering the internet for the StarTribune newpaper. He'll be writing pieces for the print edition and last week he launched a weblog called Digital Drifter with a nice tip of the hat blog entry, including three alums from gofast.net: Mike O'Connor, Ralph Jenson, and yours truly.
Some other coincidences: John's college roommate was Kai Hagen, now running for commissioner in Frederick County Maryland. I got to know Kai when I ran Cafe Utne back in the 90s. He was one of the many online moderators and eventually became manager of Cafe Utne, taking over after I left in 1998. And last week I heard Kai's name mentioned by one of his former professors, Bruce Roberts, who's scheming to start a Northfield area conversation salon. He and his wife Jan just became neighbors, having moved into Village on the Cannon… which is owned by Collegeville Communities (AKA Collegeville Development Group), a client of mine whose president, Colleen Hollinger Petters (seen in this photo with her husband, Jon Petters), is collaborating with Bruce on getting the Northfield salon going and who wants to collaborate with our as yet non-existent salon initiative at Northfield.org. Got all that?
By Griff Wigley, on March 1st, 2006
I was a guest presenter at The Frank seminar yesterday in Minneapolis, hosted by a team of collaborators called Are You Frank? “Authentic branding through social media.”
(See my FlickR album photos of the event.)
The Frank collaborators: Elissa Gjertson, JP Meyers, John Nielson, and Andrew Eklund.
Among the other guest presenters: Tom Bartel, publisher of The Rake; Matt Bartel, host of MNSpeak; Robert Metcalf, founder of FlySpy.
Among the attendees I met: Renee Austin, USA coordinator for Give Us Wings who’s also known as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist; Andre Bergeron, head honcho at Babble On Recording Studios; and Laura Dockery, marketing director for Solutia Consulting.
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