Jon Commers: Donjek founder and principal

Jon Commers: Donjek founder and principal—"Jon Commers is founder and principal of Donjek, Incorporated. His projects focus on navigating placemakers - planners, developers, engineers - through financial feasibility and analysis, with an emphasis on facilitating public-private sector negotiations. Jon also writes the Cents of Place blog, a forum for discussion of the financial issues around placemaking. In addition to his work with Donjek, Jon is a member of the Planning Commission for the City of St. Paul, Minnesota. He has served as a Fellow at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute Policy Forum, and as an Adjunct Professor of Economics at the College of Saint Catherine. Jon holds an MBA (University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, MN) and a BA in History and Political Economy (Carleton College, Northfield, MN)."

How did you get involved in the community? Were you asked to join by editors at the Star Tribune, or was there some kind of application process?
I was asked by the editors directly, and am still uncertain how they tracked me down or identified me as a candidate.

Do you get paid to post? How often do you post?
I don't get paid; I try to post at least once a week, but sometimes it's difficult to keep up with that schedule, depending on my work schedule.

Are you given specific topics to blog about?
Periodically, the editors ask us to respond to an event or an idea, but by and large, we're on our own.

What do you think are the benefits of posting?
It's an opportunity to engage on some larger issues and keep your name in the public forum.

Do you blog outside of the Your Voices blog? If not, why did you want to join this blogging community?
I do blog at the Cents of Place, my biz blog.

Do you think there are any professional conflicts to your posting? In other words, do you think the views expressed in your posts should be seen separately from the views of your employer? Why or why not? Do you think readers can differentiate between the two views?
I am my employer, so this is moot. I am the brand.

Do your posts get edited by someone at the Star Tribune?
I don't believe so.

I saw that the comments are moderated. Do you think more people would post comments if they weren't approved before being published?
I'm not sure - but I think some moderation is a reasonable thing for a major metro paper. Even with the moderation, there are some pretty irresponsible comments.

Do you see the community as an important addition to traditional journalism/newspapers?
I think the jury is definitely out on this. We're not trained as journalists and by and large don't research as well as editorialists, so it's critical it's labeled clearly as a forum of plain
joes and janes. I think journalism is going to look very different in 50 years, and I'm not sure that's good.

What do you think makes you unique from the other bloggers?
I'm the private-sector guy interested in public-sector issues. And I like to think I post on a range of issues. We have a number of bloggers who are single-issue folks: Everything comes back to that one issue in each of their posts. I would find that stifling.

(bio, photo courtesy Star Tribune)