Here are my top 10 blog posts from 2013 (unique visits in parentheses, bolded items explained below):<\/p>\n
I found this breakdown curious, and it speaks to why I started my new website<\/a>, Faster Than 20<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. The purpose of this blog is not<\/em> to build an audience. It’s a place to record my thoughts. If others find my posts useful, great. If my posts catalyze interesting interactions and lead to new connections and learning, even better.<\/p>\n My site statistics reflect my lack of intentionality as well as the vagaries of attention on the Internet. The top post by far was a memory I shared about Aaron Swartz<\/a>, someone I barely knew. Obviously, his suicide was big news, and rightfully so. But my tribute to Doug Engelbart<\/a> \u2014 someone whom I knew well and who was more famous than Aaron \u2014 didn’t even crack my top 25 most visited posts. (It was 27.)<\/p>\n My second most visited post was about camera bags<\/a>. I’ve written over 650 posts, and none of them have been even remotely similar to that piece. Why the popularity? Mostly because it was reshared<\/a> by Tom Bihn<\/a>, the manufacturer I mentioned in the post, but also because there’s not a lot of good information on the Internet about bags for micro-four-thirds cameras, which was why I wrote the post in the first place. From that perspective, I’m glad that it’s been a popular post.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I’m a little disappointed that the knowledge nuggets I shared about collaboration (by rough count, about 75 percent of my posts this past year) were not more prominently represented in the top 10. (The ones that were are bolded.) I think that several have been useful and important, but they have not been widely accessed. This could either mean that I’m overstating their importance in my head, or that I haven’t been intentional enough about building the audience.<\/p>\n