Happy Birthday, Blog

My blogs are celebrating their 9th birthdays – Deal Architect this month, its younger sibling New Florence in March.  Together, they represent my longest “book” – 9,000 posts long.

It’s been quite a run. In many ways they are ying and yang. Deal Architect is punchier and reflects the voices and disappointments of many of my consulting clients about the pace of and payback from enterprise technology. New Florence is pure joy as I catalog innovation across products, places and projects.

In the earlier years, Deal Architect had an unfair advantage because my consulting practice and social network call signs used the same moniker. Also, enterprise readers used to have a narrow view of innovation and thought New Florence was too removed from their world. Boy has that changed, and in a sign of optimism for all of us that innovation is accelerating around the globe, New Florence has been growing at a faster pace than Deal Architect both in content and audience the last couple of years.

Blogging has brought me so many benefits

• Readers from around the world – a pleasure to meet many of them during my travels
• Many new friends including the Enterprise Irregulars, a group that came together in 2006
• Fodder for 3 books I have worked on since 2009
• A chance to invite many casual writers to guest blog. I am especially proud of the 2009 and continuing in 2014 series where nearly a hundred folks have written about how science and tech have helped evolve their passions and hobbies
• An introduction to many obscure industries and places around world which constantly make me stop and go “wow”

I have so many people to thank

• My sponsors who have been immensely supportive while respecting the independence rules I have laid out
• Countless technology and other companies who keep me informed of their products and invite me to their events
• Typepad, my blogging platform, which has performed without hiccup and at very reasonable investment. While many professional bloggers sneer at it, I challenge anyone to show me many service providers which could match the cost and service levels I have received.
• Tools like MS Windows Live Writer and Bit.Ly that have helped format then compress addresses for thousands of the blogs
• Google for bringing readers sometimes years after a blog is posted and from places farther than the mind could imagine would be interested in a post.
• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for allowing me to share these posts with a changing set of communities.
• My parents for the  DNA with the C – curiosity – chromosome which makes me look at and admire so many things others find not so interesting.
• And again, my loyal readers

Look forward to your continued support as we march to the 10 year, 10K milestone. Thanks again.