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 they are compiling a list of rural, citizen-led online projects including blogs, online discussions, YouTube channels, Flickr groups, wikis, and more. Check out the current list of the MN Voices resources: http://delicious.com/tag/mnvoices

The next step is to try to support the citizens maintaining these tools. To that end, they 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. Learn more about the list here: http://e-democracy.org/citizenmedia

If you know of any citizen-based resources to add to our list, please let add them to Delicious and tag them with [mnvoices]. The goal is to be comprehensive and they are happy to hear of new additions. Also, if you maintain a site or know of someone who does and might like to join the 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.