Today is a milestone for me. Ten years ago I picked up a virtual notepad for the first time and committed my first blog post to the ether. It’s been a wild ride ever since. It also marks the milestone of being the job that I’ve held the longest so far in my career.

Blogging has been a huge boon for me. I’ve become a better writer in the last decade. I’ve learned how to ask the right questions and get good material for a story instead of just putting out what someone wants me to say. I’ve learned that being a pseudo-journalist is a thing you can do and have fun with.

I’ve written a ton over the years. 751 posts, as a matter of fact (counting this one). I’ve always tried to hold myself to a standard of getting something out once a week. Aside from the few times when I’ve tried to push that to twice a week I’ve held up pretty well. Yeah, I’ve slipped and the day job has gotten in the way more than once. However, keeping myself to a strict schedule has ensured that my attention stays focused on this blog and that it doesn’t lapse into irrelevance any more than normal.

It’s also opened up a lot of doors for me. Blogging was how I got introduced to the Packet Pushers and raised my profile from “crazy nerd that writes” to “crazy nerd that is a podcast guest.” That got me involved with Tech Field Day and from there things went all the way to Mars. In fact, it was Tech Field Day that helped me understand the importance of writing and to rededicating myself to what I do. And to the job interviewer that considered my blogging to be a hobby, not unlike restoring cars or fishing, I think I can safely say it’s become way more than either of us could have imagined.

I’m still creating content all over the place. In addition to all the stuff I do for my day job at Tech Field Day, I write coverage from our events and the briefings I take at Gestalt IT. I have started making videos. I am part of a weekly podcast that covers IT news and lets me be a little snarky now and then. I’ve seen the shift of content moving from written words to spoken words to video and beyond. There’s no shortage of information being shared today, even if some of it is shared in formats that favor shorter attention spans.

What more is there to write about at this point? I go back and look at my early posts and laugh at how I originally wanted to get my thoughts down about structured troubleshooting. And then it morphed into CCIE studies. Then SDN. Or maybe engineering woes. All of it has been growth for me. I’ve learned how to argue and not assassinate character. I’ve seen how people can take different sides of the same argument. I’ve even seen how the things we have settled years before come back around for a new generation of networking pros to argue over again and again.

I love this place. It’s one of the reasons why I’m the only writer here. And trust me, the content mills are always emailing me to put up sponsored posts. But I keep turning them down because this is my place for my thoughts. I want those of you that still read along with me to enjoy what I think about something or know that what I’m saying isn’t a post that was compensated. Knowing where I’m coming from hopefully helps you all understand how the forces in the market and the community drive what we see, what we learn, and what we do with it all.

Tom’s Take

I’m glad I made it through my warm up period for blogging. The funny thing about writing is that you just keep getting better and better as you go along. Who I am hasn’t really changed. A few of the certifications are retired or expired. Twitter is still a thing that I do. But this is where I belong. It’s my home and my work and the place where I get to be me. I hope the next decade is as much fun and as meaningful for all of you as it has been for me!