We’re looking for Minnesota bloggers and other online community promoters/creators. If you maintain or know of a Minnesota-focused site, please let us know (or add your site to Delicious and tag it with mnvoices). Also please consider joining our email-based list of folks maintaining these community resources.

Here’s the official description…

The Blandin Foundation (http://www.blandinfoundation.org) and E-Democracy (http://www.e-democracy.org/) have teamed to promote and support Online Citizen Engagement & Media Projects in rural Minnesota. To begin to promote these Minnesota Voices we are compiling a list of rural, citizen-led online projects including blogs, online discussions, YouTube channels, Flickr groups, wikis, and more. You can see a list of the MN Voices resources we have found here: http://delicious.com/tag/mnvoices

Our next step is to try to support the citizens maintaining these tools. To that end, we are creating a citizen media and online engagement community of practice online – in other words, an email-based discussion list where Minnesota Voices can meet and talk about issues that interest them – be it cross-promoting each other’s work, technical assistance, opening the door to collaboration, or simply meeting people with a shared interest in Minnesota-based citizen engagement. You can learn more about the list here: http://e-democracy.org/citizenmedia

So why are we writing to you? Because we would really like to focus on rural voices and many of you are the rural voices. So, if you know of any citizen-based resources we should add to our list, please let us know. Our goal is to be comprehensive and we are happy to hear of new additions. Also, if you maintain a site or know of someone who does and might like to join our Citizen Media Online Group, please feel free to join or invite others to join.

Every attempt will be made to invite owners of the sites we find to join the list – but your help in compiling the list and spreading the word is greatly appreciated.

With a focus on community resources, I thought I’d try to mention one or two a week from the Delicious list, starting with The West Central Blogger: Stories that celebrate and inform West Central Minnesota.

The blog is maintained by the West Central Initiative, a foundation that serves to improve west central Minnesota through funding, programs and technical assistance. I love the focus on the area. Sometimes the stories are personal – not as in embarrassingly voyeuristic, rather they highlight the thoughts or talents of an individual. Other posts focus on area events – upcoming or past. The blog stared last February and appears to have 6-12 posts a month. Some posts interest me because I have an interest in community and economic development; some interest me as a mom.