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Maggie Fox, September 14 2006

Please stop by for a visit at JuliaKollek.ca. She’s a political candidate in the local elections, referred to us by a colleague of mine from my newsroom days. She needed a website, and of course a blog was the perfect answer. Development and design costs were minimal, search engine rankings likely to be high… and of course the benefit of creating a space where voters could have their say is immeaurable, both in its functionality and novelty (which will also likely help garner her a little more local press attention).

Of course, we’re not exactly pioneers in this; lots of politicians are now using blogs as part of their communications strategy – Howard “YYYYYEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!” Dean being an early – successful – adopter (if you recall, his team raised millions via internet donations) and pretty much all of the candidates for the Liberal Party leadership here in Canada have done exactly as we have – used a blog engine for all or part of their campaign sites (with two notable exceptions – Bob Rae and Scott Brison). In my opinion, the very best user of new technology to communicate is Michael Ignatieff – he’s even got a podcast!

The municipal elections are about 2 months away (Monday Novermber 13th), I am really looking forward to seeing how Julia’s blog evolves and is used – this isn’t a national event like the Liberal leadership campaign, it’s a small local election, albeit in a very wired place. Julia has committed to updating her blog daily if at all possible, and I have strongly reminded her to mention it in every interview/meeting/printed piece she does.

Now, if I could only find out who did Michael Ignatieff’s site – they did an absolute kick-ass job!