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Editor:  mthorson

Name:	mthorson
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Home Page:	http://www.isgonline.com/links.htm
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Profile

I'm a self-employed marketing communications consultant located in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota area. I also do some web site content development. My clients tend to be non-profit organizations, schools and government agencies, as well as small businesses and high-tech firms.

I am an active volunteer in my community, including a past Planning Commissioner and a current Traffic and Transportation Commissioner for the City of Bloomington, Minnesota. I am also on the Board of Directors of the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, and I have been very involved in programs to raise awareness of breast cancer, such as the Komen Foundation and the Twin Cities Race for the Cure.

Some days I feel like I do more volunteering than income-generating work ... but it's in my blood.

My pet project is the Bloomington Web Cafe @ www.bloomington-mn.org/webcafe/

Here, I and other volunteers encourage citizen participation and productive discussions of issues and information related to living in the Bloomington, Minnesota area.

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And if the above isn't boring enough, here's more!

My interst in online information dates back to 1981 when I graduated from college with a degree in Urban Studies (public affairs) and geography. My plan was to get a job in city planning or public administration.

But, as fate would have it, I was offered a job in private sector with Control Data Corporation as a database editor for the Local Government Information Network (or LOGIN). Anyone hear of it?

There I edited "units of information" submitted by member organizations (Cities and Counties) and other organizations for inclusion in our database of solutions. I also helped to create a comprehensive "thesaurus" of terms used to index our database. (we used a "controlled vocabulary" in those days vs full-text searching).

Thus began my career in online information technology. This was the first job I had in the field, and in many ways the best job I ever had, second only to being self-employed.

I had a lot of contact in those days with municipal reference librarians and reference librarians in general. Folks, if you're doing research of any kind and need some help, talk with your local reference librarian. These folks can be awesome in there ability to direct you to the right information sources. And their services are generally free through your local/county library.