Yes, yes I did.
For some time now, I’ve been thinking about refreshing my presence online to better reflect what I’m up to, and update the content, technology, and architecture. I needed to consolidate my content.
If you have been on the internet for a while, or lived on this green earth for any duration, you will witness the inevitable boom and bust of some technology platforms. Just like a platform, everything needs renewal, like Spring.
So many platforms, so little time
I’ve been an active Twitter user for some time for my professional work. I would tweet actively at conferences, especially Adobe Max. Some time ago, Giulia Forsythe suggested that I could capture all of those tweet on a single page with Storify. Great idea! Storify could capture tweets based on hashtags, users and search terms, and it did a fantastic job. Fast forward to 2018, Adobe purchased Storify.com and while you could export your content in HTML, or migrate your content to a paid Storify 2 account, the platform effectively ended at that point, and all of my lovely Storify content was gone.
What was the tipping point?
Sometimes, it’s good to have someone else remind you of the things you believe in or what motivates you.
Reason 1
Some time ago, an IT colleague of mine A. Michael Berman asked “Do you have a blog?”
“No.” I said flatly.
“I would read it.” he said.
Reason 2
Of course, now I’m having trouble finding the original reference, but I was listening to a podcast by https://bandrewsays.com/ and he emphasized the importance of maintaining your own presence (at a cost) because content platforms come and go.
Isn’t WordPress a platform?
Sure. Despite being an open source platform, WordPress is a platform nonetheless, and it has a shelf-life. However, it’s had a pretty good run, and if you’re hosting the content you have all the power and the responsibility for managing your content. So, I’m investing a bit more time into this real estate.
But why?
I find great purpose in helping other people. I ran into some instances where I discovered I had created things on various platforms and almost completely lost track of them. If content isn’t discoverable, well, it’s lost.
Isn’t it a lot of work?
It’s a challenge and a learning opportunity. I’ve been coding HTML since the 90’s and I hope to be working on the web for years to come.
I hope you found these thoughts useful, and that you discover some content here that delights.
