Last week I started coaching Elizabeth Schott, Executive Director of the Northfield Area United Way, on the use of their weblog.

I’ve started working with Director Susan Waughtal and the people at RNeighbors (also known as the Rochester Neighborhood Resource Center) to create a citizen/community journalism website called RVoices in Rochester, MN.

It’s intended to be similar to what we’ve created here in my hometown of Northfield, called Northfield.org (operated by the 501c3 non-profit, Northfield Citizens Online (NCO).

There’s nothing there yet, as all we’ve done is install CivicSpace, “… a free open-source software platform for Retirement Planning and civic activity. It allows individuals and organizations to build online communities that communicate effectively, act collectively, and coordinate coherently with a network of other related organizations and communities.” NCO is actively working on installing this platform on N.org as well.

I am experimenting with some different tools to make it easier for posting to blogs, rather than using the default rich text editors that are provided by the blogging platform.

This is being posted with Blogjet.

The big problem with most apps is that they don’t handle full wysiwyg with images/photos very well.  So let’s see how this one works. 

I’ve uploaded a postcard and had it create a thumbnail that allows text to wrap. So far so good. I’ll keep experimenting.

We got back from Italy late last night.

Lots to show and tell but until we get the Cinque Terre trip blog and photo album up, this photo of Vernazza (where we stayed for one of the two weeks) will have to suffice.

My wife Robbie and I are heading to Italy for vacation on Tuesday.

We plan to spend our entire two weeks in the Cinque Terre region. (The best photos we’ve found are here.)

According to Rick Steves: “The Cinque Terre… is a series of villages clinging to a remote stretch of the Riviera coastline. Each town is a variation on the same theme: a pastel jumble of homes crouching in a gully like crusty sea creatures in a tide pool, undisturbed by traffic or modern development.”

The first few days we’re staying at the Trattoria Gianni Franzi in Vernazza. After that, who knows?

We’re not bringing our computers and we’re not going to be blogging or moblogging on the trip. We may check email occasionally and we have enabled our cellphones to receive voicemails (see my Contact page). We will be taking a s***load of photos, natch, and will put them up in an online album when we return in early October.

Arrivederci!

I don’t see any official announcements anywhere but I spoke with Mary Reid Friday night and with Fraser Henderson on Monday morning and got the unofficial word…

ReadMyDay Phase II has received funding from the local e-Democracy National Project board which met on Friday. There are a few details to attend to before it’s all official but it looks as though we’ll get rolling on the project early in October.

So this is good news. Not on a par with reclaiming the Ashes, of course, (did I phrase that right?) but not insignificant in the universe of leadership blogging.

I’m pleased. Really pleased. And excited to get started.

I was profiled by the Media Giraffe project last week, primarily for my work with Northfield Citizens Online and its Northfield.org site. The piece was titled: For Minnesota’s Griff Wigley, the Internet is another form of social work.

The project spotlights “neck-above-the-crowd individuals making innovative, sustainable use of media (old and new) to foster participatory democracy and community.” 

Update 9/16: Project Director Bill Densmore interviewed me at MPR’s HQ yesterday. Click photo to enlarge. He plans to do a series of video profiles of “giraffes” on their website, maybe a book, and maybe a conference in the fall of 2006. Bill is the founder of Newsshare and Clickshare.

In Tuesday’s Washington Post, Ruth Marcus has an article titled PowerPoint: Killer App?. The article ran on the commentary page of the Star Tribune this morning.

The article references Wired magazine’s 2003 article PowerPoint Is Evil by Edward Tuft and a subsequent essay titled The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.

And of course, it also references Peter Norvig’s PowerPoint spoof of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

The antidote could be the approach by author Cliff Atkinson in his new book, Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire.

I bought the book in June but haven’t yet had a compelling reason to learn its approach. Soon, tho.

In today’s NY Times: How to Make Phone Calls Without a Telephone.

I’ve been using both Skype and Google Talk in the past week, and I’m amazed at how easy they are to use and that the quality of the connection is so good, even in a call to Australia.

I’m heading to Mpls this morning for this panel, hosted by Business Wire. I may do some moblogging from there.

Navigating the Blogosphere: How Blogs Are Influencing the Media and Changing the PR Landscape

• How to use blogs to reach consumers, shareholders, media, and other key audiences
• How traditional media organizations are adapting to the rise of the blogosphere
• How to monitor and interact with blogs
• How blogs are impacting traditional public relations practices

Panelists:

• Steve Cohen, Senior Librarian, PubSub Concepts, Inc. — Co-manager of the Public Library Association weblog
• Jason DeRusha, General Assignment Reporter, WCCO �TV — One of the first local TV
• journalists to have a regularly updated weblog on his station’s website
• Andrew Eklund, Founder & CEO, Ciceron — A firm specializing in a variety of leading edge marketing strategies such as blogs
• Sarah Lutman, Minnesota Public Radio, Senior Vice President of Arts & Culture