I update my Northfield civic blogosphere directory every few months… and did so again yesterday.
See the current version and let me know if there are changes needed.
|
|||
|
One of the things I’ve always appreciated about local politics is that the issues we deal with are non-partisan, and more often than not don’t lend themselves readily to being characterized as “liberal” or “conservative”. And Locally Grown has always been dedicated to the discussion of local issues.
You get my drift. I understand why partisanship is prominent in our discussion threads about the election and national political issues; I just don’t think it’s particularly accurate or helpful to throw these terms around in other discussions. Since Locally Grown in particular is defined not just by posts written by the Triumvirate, but also by the personalities of the regular commentors, if most of those commentors lean to the left, Locally Grown may appear that way. But since these things seem to come and go in waves of participation, LG could just as easily appear conservative a few months from now. What evidence is there that LG is a liberal blog? And where’s the “conservative blog” in town? I want to follow that one too.
Right photo: Mary Nelson, Julie Bubser, Zach Pruitt, and Curt Benson at a recent WordPress training session at the Bittersweet Eatery Tea Room. (Mary and Curt will be working on the new Northfield Mayor’s Task Force on Youth Alcohol and Drug Use website, coming soon.) Katie Nelson did the original design, Northfield web designer Sean Hayford O’Leary implemented it using WordPress, and I concentrated on the coaching (with my blogging coach business hat on).
Doug McGill, visiting instructor in English at Carleton, invited me and Northfield Citizens Online/Northfield.org board member Doug Bratland to his Truth vs. Power: A Journey in Journalism class this week to talk about our local experiences with citizen journalism, community media, and Northfield’s civic blogosphere.
See Doug McGill’s own About page as well as Carleton’s About Doug McGill page.
Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield The owners of the new “a.renee salon” on Clinton Lane off Route 3 hosted hundreds of beauty-seekers on Thursday evening during its grand opening luau, with a few attendees even arriving in an ebony limousine. Business partners Amanda Renee Mulligan of Apple Valley and Kim Swanson of Burnsville first opened the business in June. Swanson said during Thursday’s celebration the business offers services and an atmosphere arguably found nowhere else in Minnesota. The salon’s two European Touch Murano pedicure spa chairs, for example, are likely the only ones of their kind for miles around, Swanson said. The chairs cost about $12,000 each according to Internet sales Web sites. “We had some trouble getting them to meet building code,” Swanson said of the chairs, smiling on the salon’s rear patio. Apparently, the luxurious footbaths at the bases of the chairs had fallen into the category of “wading pools,” which could present a drowning hazard for small children, Swanson said. More than one lei-wearing party guest seemed to look forward to drowning daily worries while reclining in the chairs. Lina Schultz of Farmington, for example, said she planned to schedule a pedicure at the salon soon. “This salon seems more elaborate and makes me feel like I would be more pampered than others I’ve been to,” Schultz said beside the “nail bar,” which is a manicure station next to the pedicure chairs designed to look like a martini bar.
Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield; Caption: Lina Schultz examines a glass maraschino cherry in a decorative martini glass at the salon’s nail bar. “It shows how my dream has come true,” Mulligan said of the figure. For Discussion: During our conversation, Mr. Swanson wondered aloud why higher-end restaurants in the Northfield area seem to come and go on a regular basis. Is there truly a demand in Northfield for cutting-edge cuisine? Or, for that matter, for a salon that offers (among many other things) a permanent lip make-up service priced at $525?
Photo: Bonnie Obremski/RepJNorthfield Caption: Alisa McCusker of Cannon Falls peruses jewelry sold at the salon.
I was explaining our LoGroNo discussion guidelines to RepJ reporter Bonnie Obremski on Sunday. It was on my mind in part because of the Sunday StarTribune commentary by editor Nancy Barnes on their recent experience with opening up comments on their stories. They’ve now shut down comments on some stories and have had to remove over 8,000 comments.
This week’s Time magazine has a column by Lev Grossman titled Post Apocolypse.
Realizing that we’ve got a culture of civility here on LG has made us rethink our policy of only blogging about local issues. I’ve said in the past that there are plenty of places on the internet to discuss issues of state, national, and international relevance. What didn’t occur to me was that there are few places on the internet where one can do this where a culture of civility reigns. And of course, there’s a certain attraction to discussing those issues with friends, neighbors, and fellow local citizens. The long-running discussions on blog posts Northfielders for Obama, McCain (259 comments since Jan. 27) and Are Northfield area churches waking up to the cognitive revolution? (188 comments since May 28) are evidence that there’s an interest in this. (Very little of those discussions involve Northfield.) And since the way we’ve set up our LG blog allows you to follow (and subscribe to) just those discussions that interest you, there’s no worry about any particular discussion thread dominating. We’ll test this out over the next few weeks with an occasional blog post on an issue that doesn’t particularly have a local angle. Let us know what you think. Our guest today was Randy Jennings, local citizen, long time Northfielder, and eloquent critic of Locally Grown. We mostly discussed his criticism of the recent controversial blog posts and comment threads about the 6/2 Council meeting and the CVB’s performance, with an occasional tangent about citizen journalism. The Twins broadcast bumped us from our normal 5:30pm air time on KYMN and we used that as an excuse to do a full-hour show. (I have no idea when KYMN news director Jeff Johnson plans to air the show but probably sometime after 2 am, just to be safe.)
Tracy and I (Ross headed out to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary) took them out for a drink at the Cow after the show to try to explain why we’ve fallen so far down since they left town. Click play to listen. 1 hour, 2 minutes. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes. Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Wednesdays at 5:30 PM on KYMN 1080 AM.
It encouraged more local citizens and leaders to try blogging, including those running for local office (it was a presidential election year like this year, with local races for city councils, school board, and county board). And it helped me get the first of several contracts to work with local councilors in the UK to learn the art of civic leadership blogging. My latest project with the UK involved working with Gallomanor Communications Ltd on the creation of the CivicSurf project video/DVD. From the About page:
I coached the three UK councilors over several months and wrote much of the documentation for the booklet. In May, Gallomanor’s Shane McCracken premiered the video at a conference in London. Here’s the the trailer:
I have a copy of the DVD (it runs 15 minutes), and I’d like to host one or more free public showings here in Northfield for anyone:
Yes, I have a blog coaching/web design business, but I won’t be hawking my services at this meeting. And there are several others here in town who do a great job at setting up blog sites (e.g., Sean Hayford O’Leary, Tim Jackson, Scott Schumacher, and proabably others). I’ll host these showings either in the meeting room at the Northfield Public Library or at a local pub.
Questions? Attach a comment or contact me. Interested? Then Doodle! A group of about 10 attendees from the Journalism That Matters conference, New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: Convening Entrepreneurs Who Combine Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs, observed the discussion for 45 minutes and then joined in… me among them. In the PIJ handout that was used to help focus the discussion, Locally Grown was cited as an example of Approach 4: the public is the press.
Since we and our colleagues are very close to launching the Representative Journalism project here in Northfield, these issues are now, um, more relevant than ever. So let’s discuss them.
I’m heading to the Minnesota Journalism Center at the Univ. of Minnesota later this morning for a conference titled New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: Convening Entrepreneurs Who Combine Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs. It’s one of a ongoing series of national conferences from the Journalism That Matters team. The RepJ team will be attending, too, and so we’ll be talking about Locally Grown, the Northfield civic blogosphere, and the rest of the local media here in Northfield. The vigilante blogging post and subsequent discussion is relevant to all this, so I do want to continue dealing with issues raised there. Randy Jennings has graciously agreed to be on upcoming LG podcast to talk about this stuff, so stay tuned for that. Randy Jennings added this comment to the discussion thread attached to my blog post in which I was critical of the CVB.
I’m interested in getting feedback on my CVB post, not unlike the feedback I asked for and got last year on our handling of the heroin story. I’m wondering how my efforts to shine a light on the CVB/Chamber arrangement are different than what happens at newspapers. For example:
I spent more time on the CVB post than I ordinarily do. I talked by phone to a former City Councilor, I met with Kathy F2F, I spoke at open mic, I talked to Chamber and CVB board members, and had conversations with several other citizens. And I spent many hours digging through documents and creating that blog post. I do agree with Randy that Ross, Tracy and I have a bully pulpit with Locally Grown, and that we’re not afraid to use it. But I don’t think we engage in “vigilante blogging” which implies a reckless disregard in the methods used to criticize people and/or organizations involved in civic affairs. ‘Public ombudsman’? I dunno. I think that role has to be continually earned, and anyone, including for-profit media organizations and citizen bloggers, can try. So I see my CVB blog post as an opinionated, fact-based piece, sort of a hybrid of a newspaper investigative article and a subsequent editorial. I’m sure I could have done it better so I’m interested in feedback. In Sunday’s Strib: Citizens Kane & Jane: Grass-roots “citizen journalism” is taking off in Minnesota’s online communities as moonlighters report on issues they say the mass media are missing. (See also the sidebar on Citizen Journalism resources.)
Okay, I admit it. If Locally Grown had been mentioned in this piece, I probably would’ve blogged it on Saturday night when Curt Benson first alerted me to it. But it’s irritating that the journalist, Randy Salas, completely missed:
Sigh.
It also prompted us to move up the aggregator widget, as well as shrink the number of/character count of the comments displayed at the top of the sidebar so as to give the bloggers more prominent sidebar real-estate. Let us know (comment here or Contact Us) what you think about these changes. Bloggers featured in the podcast:
And see the Locally Grown Local Civic Blogosphere page for an updated list of local civic-oriented blogs. Let us know (comment here or Contact Us) if I’m missing any.
Click play to listen. 30 minutes. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes. Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Wednesdays at 5:30 PM on KYMN 1080 AM.
About a month ago, the Triumvirate talked about bringing more attention to the local blogs that we aggregate on the Locally Grown site (admittedly they both were drinking at the time). The aggregated blogs are kind of buried rather deeply beneath the comments so they may be overlooked, but many are quite active and all are worth a look. I’ll fill my quota with a post about one of those blogs. Selecting one purely at random, I’ll focus on the site of the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation. Speaking objectively, it’s a handsome site, full of valuable updates, stimulating analysis, and clever witticisms. In the month of April, for example, the posts include the Garden Club’s Exciting New Initiative, NDDC Efforts on the Commercial Property Tax Issue, the Downtown Cow’s New Name, Ideas for Maximizing the Leverage from Your Stimulus, some Unanticipated Benefits from Meetings, talking Quality of Life with the Block Heads, NDDC Board Members Do Downtown, an approach to Encouraging Growth without Sacrificing Your Character, heads-up for Girls Nite Out 2008, be aware of College Students Plan to Descend on Downtown, and Northfield is Bidding Farewell to Lansing Hardware. If this post doesn’t inspire Griff and Tracy to get back at it, I’ve got another idea. I’m going to do one celebrating Jefferson Airplane’s “Bless It’s Pointed Little Head”. That oughtta get them strapping themselves back in. In case anyone’s wondering about the fact that it’s been THREE DAYS since Griff, Ross or I posted anything, it’s because both Griff and I have been/are out of town. Thank you to Ross, who’s been carrying the post load by himself for the past week or so, and thanks also to all you active commentors who are keeping the site alive in the meantime! I have at least one post in the works, and I suspect Griff does too, so there’ll be some new fodder up here soon.
Maybe we’re just too damned mean here on LG. But I have to point out that we do get regular, though maybe not frequent, comments from some really nice people, so it can’t be all bad. Maybe we should recruit some cheerleaders who volunteer to defend the newbies. Griff does a pretty good job moderating but he really likes to throw people into shark-infested waters to see if they’ll sink or swim. I talked with someone a couple of weeks ago who reads all the comments daily, who said he just hasn’t gotten up the nerve yet to make any of his own. Would anything make it easier? Would it make a difference if we had more posts on non-controversial topics? What might help?
Perhaps some cross-[sub]cultural communication is in order. Those of us who’ve had long-term involvement with online dialog and virtual communities have had time to absorb the social conventions of that milieu. This isn’t necessarily the case with people who are relatively new to this world, or who don’t use the medium extensively. Added to this mild culture clash is the fact that our online community parallels our geographical one, which adds another layer of complexity; it makes it more difficult to determine which social conventions apply, and how that might play out online here at Locally Grown. If I have a beef with a particular individual in Northfield, I’m not likely to publish a blog post without having at least a telephone conversation with the person first. But many of the issues I’m raising for discussion, or things I’m critiquing, are procedural or institutional in nature, and it’s not clear where the problem resides or with whom to effectively address it. I thought of this while reading Griff’s post about the Chamber when he wrote about why he hasn’t joined. If Griff wanted seek a specific change in the Chamber, who does he call? The new board president? Last year’s president? The executive director? What about “legacy” policies that have been adopted and implemented by people over a period of years or decades, who may no longer be involved? That’s just one example. So what are the rules exactly? Is it a given that if Griff or Ross or I “speak” publicly without first speaking privately with those concerned with a particular topic, we’re out of bounds? Will my children’s teachers take it out on my kids because their mother is a bitch? Will I be blackballed by Miss Manners? I’d like to gain additional perspectives from others in the LoGro community. What do you think?
Locally Grown and the Representative Journalism (RepJ) project are featured on page 11. And the Ft. Meyer’s Florida Team Watchdog project (being launched by the Northfield News) is featured on pages 9-10. (I’ve turned off comments on this post. Continue the discussion in the Team Watchdog comment thread.)
Click here to see the screenshot I took around noon today, with “Page Not Found” error.
20+ people showed up at Froggy Bottoms earlier tonight for a F2F blogosophere social. Photos by me and host Susan Hvistendahl. Click thumbs to enlarge.
It’s not a Locally Grown-sponsored event but we do like the idea and it’s possible that more than a third of the triumvirate will show up. See the PDF flyer and Susan’s blog post for more info.
Bruce is also a member of the Nonmotorized Transportation Task Force and the Energy Task Force for the City of Northfield. Newly-elected District 25 Minnesota State Senator Kevin Dahle (that links to his Senate page) has decided (wisely, IMHO) to use his WordPress campaign blog as his permanent blog, rather than a separate blogspot blog.
He’s named his blog Mr. Dahle Goes to St. Paul. We’re aggregating his blog’s RSS feed on our lower right sidebar along with a few other active civic/issue-oriented bloggers. See our Northfield Civic Blogosphere page for more. |
|
|
|
Copyright © 2012 Locally Grown Northfield - All Rights Reserved 
|
|||
What would it take to get the many readers who don’t comment, i.e. lurkers, to jump into the fray? We tried having a 
Current Discussion Threads