Tom Dawkins joins the blogosphere

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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.