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In Minnesota, Teaching Civic Leaders To Blog

The Idea:

In the months before the 2004 general elections, community activist Griff Wigley, co-founder of the citizen-driven news site Northfield.org., organized training seminars to encourage civic leaders to blog about community issues.

Wigley saw the leadership blogs as a new line of communication between elected or municipal leaders and their communities, one that could offer citizens a window into how government operates and how decisions are made.

The daily activities of any civic leader is a series of interactions, of small stories, Wigley advises civic leaders: “The purpose of that story - and you’re very deliberate in why you’re telling it; it’s not just a diary - you’re trying to make a point. You’re trying to get people to pay attention. And people pay way more attention to stories than they do to memos and minutes.”

The Training:

After helping several leaders establish blogs through his private coaching business, Wigley opened the doors to other civic leaders at two community education classes, one held before the November 2004 elections and a second in winter 2005.

The blog workshops taught participants how to operate blogging software and addressed issues about why blogging is a potentially valuable tool for municipal leaders, elected officials, and the residents they serve. Blogging about their daily activities takes time and effort, Wigley told participants, but it can prove valuable.

“When you start out, it’s one more thing on your plate,” he said. “But what happens, if you stick with it and you’re reasonably good at it, you get feedback. You get this serendipitous thing, people coming up to you, people raising their hand at a meeting, saying, ‘You know I read in your blog the other day,’ or a reporter calls you and asks about something you just blogged.”

The Recruits:

In the Northfield area, Wigley has trained about 14 civic leaders in writing blogs. About a dozen of those leaders are actively blogging.

Recruits have included the police chief, school board members, county commissioners, county and city planning commissioners, city council members and leaders of local non-profit organizations.

All of the participants were recruited through word-of-mouth. None had done reporting or blogging before. Wigley’s only requirement for leaders interested in the workshop was that they had used e-mail, as an indication that they were familiar with the keyboard and knew how to type.

The Results:

Leadership blogs are a staple now at Northfield’s two prominent citizen-led news sites, Northfield.org and LocallyGrownNorthfield.org.

The challenge for civic leaders, Wigley said, is to continue blogging even once they are settled into public office and resist institutional pressures to curb community involvement.

“Probably the best way to say it is, once you’re in there, once you’re on the other side - either elected or staff - it’s sort of like, yes we believe in engagement, but not that much,” Wigley said. “The more citizens are actively engaged in your life, it creates more work, more problems, more difficulties, more decisions. And you really have to have a strong belief system to overcome that.”

Leadership blogs featured at the local news sites include:

 
•   Northfield Police Chief Gary G. Smith
 
• State Sen. Tom Neuville
 
• City Economic Development Commissioner Tracy Davis

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