Communication between the government and the governed has never been more important. Check out this official website of the city of Grand Rapids, MI. It includes a blog and a focus on usability. What U.S. cities do the best with the web, including blogs and other social media?
Can a 67-year-old retired special ed teacher use a blog to create a community that will help his campaign to win a seat next year in the Michigan Senate?
My friend, Lauren Hager, is also a former member of the Michigan House of Representatives who feels the call to help lead our state out of the morass that it has been setting in for the past several years. He’s a communicator who likes to listen and learn and share. And that’s why he turned to a blog.
With a few phone conversations describing how-to do it, he went to WordPress.com, signed up, picked a theme and started posting. We’ve also had conversations a simple things like the mechanics and parts of a post, topics for posting and how to weave readers into a conversation.
How will he fare as a blogger? He’s off to a great start and I know he’s motivated to make himself available 24/7 through his blog. I invite you to visit–Lauren Hager listens and shares–and leave your comments.
I’ve lived in Michigan most of my life and I’ve only come to tolerate snow. A few years ago I found an antidote to my disdain for the fluffy white stuff and that was a snowblower. It worked. I love blowing snow.
To test the power of YouTube, my wife used my Flip video camera to show me blowing heavy snow from our driveway. I gave the video a specific headline naming the type of blower and our geographic region. I also tagged it with a snowblower and michigan tags.
In two weeks, I’m approaching 1,000 views on less than a minutes worth of video. It’s got to be folks liking or looking for snowblowers. How many views in a month? Stay tuned.
