Wigley and Associates

Blogger has released a new feature for uploading images.

Pro: it provides a great way to automatically resize originals, linked to the original, and have the text wrap around the image.

Con: it has a glitch

If you’re using Internet Explorer as your web browser and try to upload a photo with the new Blogger photo upload tool, and if that photo has a space in its file name, it won’t work. This doesn’t happen with Firefox.

PS: the fellow above (click image to enlarge) is Fraser Henderson, Northlincsnet in the U.K., whom I’m working with on a proposal for Phase II of the ReadMyDay “civic leadership blogging” project.

I’ve posted 80 photos of today’s Deepening Online Delibertation conference in the DOD photo album.

Me with Carol Hayward, Bristol City Council communications department, U.K. I met Carol back in February when I visited her city for the ReadMyDay civic leader blogging project.

I’ll be at a conference in Minneapolis today called Deepening Online Deliberation. I met many of the participants last night at a social gathering, held at Andrew Eklund’s Ciceron offices.

I may moblog some photos from there today.

Imagine Kutzky, a Rochester MN neighborhood revitalization initiative, has a weblog.

Stephanie Kilen is the chief blogger.

Dylan Jeffrey and Julian Bowrey, two British government officials who visited Northfield last summer (see the photo album and the blog post of the visit) are spearheading an International Symposium on Local E-Democracy, to be held in Mpls the last week in July.

Left to right: Bruce Morlan, Chair, Northfield Citizens Online/Northfield.org; Dylan Jeffrey and Julian Bowrey, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, UK.

On Day 2 (Wednesday, July 27), the plan is to bus conference participants to Northfield for lunch and a post-lunch blogging panel/presentation.

I’ve made arrangements for a local Indian restaurant, Northfield Chapati to cater a buffet lunch.

We’ll serve people on the outdoor patio and new deck at the Contended Cow (both restaurants are clients). If it rains, Chapati can handle 100 people indoors.

I’ve reserved the lower level conference room at the Archer House for the post-lunch blogging panel/presentation.

I’m planning to divide the blogging panel/presentation into two:

1. Formal adoption (”top down”) of blogging by a city
   This would feature the work of the three Eden Pairie manager/bloggers: City Manager Scott Neal, Police Chief Dan Carlson, and Fire Chief George Esbensen.
2. Grassroots (”trickle up”) blogging in a region
   This would focus on Northfield’s civic blogosphere project and some of the local civic leader bloggers.

I’m wondering if some of my clients would be interested in using Blogger’s feature that allows you to post to your blog with an email (that links to a Blogger help page on the topic).

I’ve created this post within my email application, Mozilla Thunderbird, with “compose messages in HTML format” turned on.

Bold
Italics
Underline
Red text

The one problem is that “Mail-to-Blogger does not support images or other attachments.”

I met with some of the board members of Minnesota Society for Public Health Education (MN SOPHE) today. I’m working with them to launch a group weblog on their website.

Earlier this morning, I posted this photo via my cell phone camera from a meeting at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Left: Crosbey Mwanza, a Fanning Fellow at the Kettering Foundation and CEO of the Swaziland Institute of Mass Communication (SIMACOM).

Right: Donica Mensing, Assistant Professor of Journalism and director of Graduate Studies at UNR. Donica is one of the people filling in for Len Witt on his Public Journalism Network weblog while he’s in South America.

It’ll melt quickly, but last night’s snow squall left a spectacular coating.

I’m leaving Squaw Valley and the CSG spring conference this morning.

I’m heading to the University of Nevada Reno to meet with Cole Campbell, Dean of the Journalism School.

And then I head home to Northfield.
.
.

While the snow was falling outside last night, attendees at CSG’s spring conference kept warm by schmoozing and dancing.

See full-size versions of these and several dozen other photos in the CSG Spring Conference photo album.

My fellow blogger panelists Rep. Steve Urquhart (above left) and Rep. Aaron Pena at the CSG conference in Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe. I see Aaron has already posted to his blog today about the session.

Our presentation was incorporated into CSG’s Technology Working Group meeting which was co-chaired by (left) Rep. Mike Murphy, Indiana and Rep. Jeff Morris, Washington.

My presentation highlighted the blogging Rep. Ray Cox who was unable to attend.

Click my photo for a larger view and you’ll see a his weblog highlighted on the screen.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I’m in the lodge of the Resort at Squaw Valley, preparing for my blogging presentation to a group of state legislators in about an hour for the Council of State Governments.

I had breakfast with these two gentlemen from Alaska. They told me they were important so I Googled them to see. Left: Gary Stevens is Senate majority leader; Representative John Coghill is House majority leader. (Those links are to their pages on the legislature’s web site.)

Rep. Coghill has his own website. Sen. Stevens has a page on the AK Republicans site, as does Rep. Coghill.

I sent the above photo to my blog with my cell phone. This is a form of moblogging. When taking pictures of yourself, it’s also known as ego-blogging.

Scott Neal, Eden Prairie City Manager, client, and U.K. trip colleague, has a feature article in the June 2005 issue of Public Management, the magazine of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

It’s titled What About Those Blogs? Is the newest electronic �narrative� useful or problematic? and is currently only available online to subscribers.

Scott graciously invited me to contribute to the piece so I worked with Public Management’s editor Beth Payne to include my Blogging Guidelines in a sidebar with bullet points on:

Why Keep a Weblog

What to Blog

How to Blog Effectively