I’m part of a team of people who will be working with a group of bloggers (primarily city council members and city managers) in the UK over the next several months. My role will primarily be “blogging coach. The primary web site for the project: Read My Day.

I’m using the phrase “civic leadership blogging” to describe the project and I expect it to have a significant influence on my book, Leadership Blogging. Because the project is already in high gear, I’ll have to put the Small Business Blogging book on the back burner for now.

I’ll be working with Steve Clift, Publicus.net in Mpls. on this project. In the UK, my teammates thus far are Fraser Henderson, Isobel Harding, and Joe Archer from NorthLincsNet; and Milica Howell from the Hansard Society.

I’ll be visiting the UK in early February, 2005 and expect to be bringing a couple of Minnesotan “civic leadership bloggers” with me.

My involvement with this began back in July when a team of visitors from the U.K. visited with Northfield and Eden Prairie officials at the Contented Cow to discuss e-democracy projects in the two cities.

(L to R) Eden Prairie City Manager Scott Neal, Isobel Harding from the North Lincolnshire Council and the Local e-Democracy National Project, Northfield citizen blogger Alex Beeby, NCO chair Bruce Morlan, Northfield Police Chief Gary Smith, Eden Praire Police Chief Dan Carlson, and Julian Bowrey, Office of the U.K. Deputy Prime Minister. Not pictured: Dylan Jeffrey, also from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

(L to R) (yours truly), Isobel Harding, and Steve Clift, Publicus.net in Mpls. (See high-res versions of these photos and others in the Northfield.org U.K. visit photo album.)