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For Griff J. Wigley, the Internet is another form of social work. For more than 20 years, the co-founder of Northfield Citizens Online has pioneered new uses for the web which bring people together.

Graduating college with a BA in philosophy and a MA in human development, Wigley began his career in the 1980s as a social worker in the public schools of his home town of Northfield, Minn. Wigley's career as a social worker included a position with the Faribault Public Schools, near his home town of Northfield. An interest in computers flourished as he delved deeper into the emerging technology. He added a role as school computer coordinator to his social work.

In 1984 Wigley discovered the online world, and got involved with an educational division of McGraw-Hill.The textbook publisher wanted to start an online network for teachers and local school districts, and Wigley signed up to help. Wigley got so involved with the McGraw Hill learning network that he quit his school social-worker role. He soon realized his main strength in the new field was as facilitator of online discussions.

In 1991, Eric Utne, founder of Utne Reader, a magazine digest of the alternative press, got in touch with Wigley and hired him part time to create an online network for his readers. Utne liked Wigley’s idea of an online “salon”, a place where his readers could take part in discussions about issues of interest. Utne decided to launch the salon online and also in person. He placed a coupon in the March 1991 issue that readers could return in order to match their locations with other nearby readers and facilitate a physical meeting. About  50 people replied saying they would be interested in an online salon. But an estimated 8,500 wanted to meet face-to-face.

Looking at it now, Wigley sees the outcome as a precursor of the success of the MeetUp phenomenon, which in 2004 helped former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s supporters rally.

Wigley and Utne launched the online salon with Wigley holding the title, “salon keeper”. He noticed that 20 of the users were from Northfield, where he lived, so he arranged for them to get together around town in coffee houses and in people's homes to discuss issues of interest. The third such meeting occurred at Wigley’s house and the topic of the day was, "[The] Internet is coming to town, and how are we going to harness it for civic good."

In was 1992, and the Internet was not yet know to the general public. But Wigley could see that linking computers for interaction around common interests was to become a pervasive social force.  So-called "freenets" were popping up all around the United States. They were electronic bulletin boards reached by dial-up phone access from individual computers rather than via the Internet. Wigley and his collegue wasted no time and set up a “freenet” in Northfield.

In 1994, Northfield.org became a non-profit organization under the name, Northfield Citizens Online. The group organized a board of directors and a few volunteers.

Wigley, at this time, was still working at Utne Reader and launched a large online web-café for the magazine. It was a huge success, so he launched one for Northfield also. "Over the years we kept on thinking of other things to do as a local community network,” he recalls. “Initially …we had phone lines to make it easy for people… who couldn’t afford… the long distance charges to get on. To get email we had free modem access for citizen [and] we… put a computer with a phone modem hookup in a local coffee house. We started hosting little websites for local non-profits who couldn’t afford it on their own.”

Some funding came from the city, a couple thousand here and a couple thousand there, some requests were turned down while others were accepted, as paying for a web server was pricey at that time.

By 2000, Wigley began dabbling in the world of online weblogs. He created a handful of them in 2000. The idea of embedding weblogs into existing websites so that business ownders and non-profit leaders could update their own websites made so much sense to Wigley that he and his NCO collegues turned Northfield Citizens Online into a weblog in 2002. His experience with weblogs grew to the point where he expanded his consulting practice from moderating public-policy discussion forums to teaching corporations. He would advise cities, counties and non-profit organizations on how to set up moderated public-policy discussions forums.

Now, he teaches corporations, small businesses, civic and government organizations how to put weblogs on their websites.

During the 2004 presidential election, Wigley noticed how popular and useful the “blogosphere” was for the people following and discussing the candidates. He thought, "gee why don’t we start a local blogosphere here in Northfield and have it be a civic blogosphere...get a bunch of people who are running for local office, the local school board, the local city council, the local county commissioners, lets see if we can get some of them to keep a weblog."

This activity drew the attention of the British government, who got excited over Wigley’s work with the civic blogosphere. They sent some officials over to view the work of Wigley and some others who had similar skills; they were very impressed with the work done by Wigley and gave him a proposal which involved Wigley teaching civic leaders in UK about the art of civic leadership blogging.

Northfield Citizens Online has continued to grow with Wigley putting an hour to two hours daily into the project. “I spend an hour to two hours a day blogging and coaching as a volunteer, then I have to stop and try and figure out how to make some money,” he jokes.

As far as the idea of others emulating the work that Wigley is doing with Northfield.org, he says it is difficult, but not impossible. "Anyone can form a little non-profit and say we're going to do this,” he urges. “You know, there’s a lot more that’s going on in this neighborhood or this town that needs air time, needs visibility, needs eyeballs and the local media are just not doing it."