On February 15, 2003, a comet flashed through the blogging universe:
And so it begins . . .
I realized the other day that I had first written about blogs well over a year ago. In fact, the rise of blogs was one of my 2002 predictions for legal technology in my annual legal tech predictions article. As I was working on updating my website (https://www.denniskennedy.com), I finally decided that I had to have my own blog. Thanks to people like Jerry Lawson, Sabrina Pacifici, and the Support Forum at MovableType.org, it’s finally here
The pop culture mavens among you will note the Babylon 5 reference in that first post. I find it somehow appropriate that Babylon 5 has now returned for on demand viewing on HBO Max.
Two days later, on my birthday, I wrote more about the motivation for the blog:
Today is my birthday. The blog is really my birthday present to myself. The start of a trend in gift giving?
Yes, that post would now work as a tweet. I wonder if it was the shortest post I ever made.
I’ve also said in some on my blogiversary / blawgiversary posts:
What I didn’t write about was how, at the time of the start of my blog, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was way too late to the game and that blogging had completely passed me by. Perhaps I over-reacted . . . . The other part of the story, which I don’t usually tell, is that starting my blog was never really about “blogging.” You see, I had been reading Dave Winer’s Scripting News for several years and had become enthusiastic about RSS feeds. In fact, I had produced an RSS feed for my website by hand before I did my blog. What I really wanted was an RSS feed, more so than a blog, and the blogging software (like Movable Type) provided the easiest way to generate an RSS feed. The trouble was that few people knew what blogs were in those days, and far fewer knew what RSS feeds were.
Over the years, in increasingly desperate attempts to get attention, I got the idea to turn the time of the anniversary of this blog into a bit of fun and a reader-appreciation week that I’ve referred to as either blogiversary or blawgiversary week, where I’ve done a number of different experiments, tried new things, and had some fun in ways that tend to earn me a little criticism from those who think that lawyer blogs should be oh so straight-laced and ever so much “on topic.” And never use a word like “blawgiversary.” Yet, I push onward.
I’ve also had a tendency to anthropomorphize my blog and let it speak for itself, even though that tends to result in my blog (1) complaining that I don’t post often enough and whining about the attention I give to The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast and the Kennedy Idea Propulsion Community and (2) shamelessly asking for blogiversary presents. In fairness, the blog has been a teenager for quite a while.
What I like to do for the blogiversary is to give something back to my readers. There are three things I’m giving this year because I love the Rule of Threes.
- From now until March 1, 2021, my online course “Productive Personal Quarterly Offsites for Busy Legal Professionals” will be available for US$99.99 instead of US$299.99. I find the Personal Quarterly Offsite practice incredibly valuable for me.
- Starting February 17 at 8:00 AM Pacific and running until 12:00 AM Pacific on February 24, you can purchase on Amazon the Kindle version of my book, Successful Innovation Outcomes in Law: A Practical Guide for Law Firms, Law Departments and Other Legal Organizations, for US$9.99, a 51% discount off the regular price.
- On Clubhouse tonight (Monday, Feb 15, 5 PM PST), I’ll be co-hosting “Things I’ve screwed up: stories of failure in LegalTech” w/ Kristin Hodgins, Colin Lachance, Dennis Kennedy, Mike Whelan, and Mike Cappucci. Kristin describes it as “a lighthearted, casual room to share our stories of failure working in legal tech.” I do have some Clubhouse invitations available – message me on LinkedIn if you might want one
And, to my blog, I wish you the happiest of birthdays. We’ve been working on this together a long time and it’s hard to imagine how it would be without you. Hope to celebrate at least 18 more.
Comet photo by Jakub Novacek from Pexels
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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