Today I started working on a new project. Being the professional association my organization publishes many reports, articles and books. The published material is not only for professional managers but also for elected officials. In fact we have been producing some handbook for elected officials which kind of "How to be a part of elected official profession?" I actually got an old handbook and I found it very interesting. I knew about lot of material which is out there for management professionals. In fact the whole MPA/MPP programs designed for a career in city management. But I was not aware of any such materials for elected officials.
The handbook was interesting and it was targeted towards policy making. If we wish to admit the 'politics-administration dichotomy' then policy making is the function of elected officials (al though these boundaries have changed and more overlapping than strictly dichotomous functions).

Anyway the point here is having a guide book for officials to learn about policy making process or how to efficiently design policies, how to conduct public meetings, how to be efficient decision makers etc is a very innovative idea. I never thought about being an elected official as a profession. I think it’s a great resource of elected officials and I am sure that many of them would be using it.