I’m heading to a Council of State Governments‘ conference at Lake Tahoe on Sunday where I’ll be on a panel titled Blogging and RSS: Impact on State Legislatures. (See their agenda page.)

Other blogging panelists:

Left: Representative Aaron Pena, Texas; and Representative Steve Urquhart, Utah.

I’ve started working with MN Campus Compact’s John Hamerlink and colleagues at other midwest universities on setting up web forums later this year on how to effectively engage college students in civic work.

These forums will be made possible through a grant from the Learn and Serve America program of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The weblog and website for the Minnesota Chapter of the Society for Public Health Education (MN SOPHE) is up and running.

Fred Holmly, president, is the chief blogger initially.

The weblog of Scott Neal, Eden Prairie City Manager, client, and U.K. trip colleague, is one of those featured in the May 23 issue of Nation’s Cities Weekly, a publication of the National League of Cities. The piece is titled City Officials Using Web Logs to Keep in Touch.

Other blogs featured: James Willey, mayor of Elburn, IL and Tom McMahon, mayor of Reading, PA.

I’ve installed a weblog on the University Village Winona website, a senior condominium and townhouse community in Winona, Minnesota, part of the Collegeville Communities group.

Erick Peterson, an intern from St. John’s University, is doing most of the blogging initially.

In today’s Star Tribune, the front page of the Homes section has an article titled “Back-to-school retirement.

It features our client, Collegeville Development Group and their two Collegeville Communities developments, Village on the Cannon in Northfield, and the University Village of Winona.

Last month we put up the Village on the Cannon weblog where Colleen Hollinger Petters, Kari Sobeck, and Nathan Woodworth have started posting.

In yesterday’s New York Times: A Blog Revolution? Get a Grip. ”

At a time when media conferences like “Les Blogs” in Paris two weeks ago debate the potential of the form, and when BusinessWeek declares, as it did on its May 2 cover, that “Blogs Will Change Your Business,” Mr. Denton is withering in his contempt. A blog, he says, is much better at tearing things down – people, careers, brands – than it is at building them up. As for the blog revolution, Mr. Denton put it this way: “Give me a break.”

“The hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe,” he said. “They want to believe there’s going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed.”