Ten Years of Blogging

Flying well under any publicity banner, today marks ten years of this blog.  My first-ever post, on September 14, 2002, got this whole thing going.  568 posts later, allow me a few reflections.

Ten years ago, there were not many resources about Lean on the web.  Blogging itself was new; the concept of self-publishing triggered consternation for many, worried that unedited text would lead the world astray.  My rationale for starting this odd exercise was simple.  I was learning more about Lean.  Many of the vendors with whom I worked wanted to learn as well...we linked up electronically.  Amazingly, others enjoyed it as well...people I never knew, around the world.  I kept writing.  The exercise helped me learn.

And a lot has changed.

Lean resources have multiplied on the web.  There is terrific stuff out there in many forms...solid material by outstanding thinkers and writers.  Blogging, as a medium, grew greatly and then faded as Facebook, Twitter and mobile apps unchained people from desktop and laptops machines.  Attention spans also shortened.  Even the best blogs use fewer words now than five years ago.

Nevertheless, I continue to learn much about Lean...I'm almost 14 years into applying this framework for approaching processes.  And I feel I'm going deeper into it.  How do we implement it?  How do I explain it?  How do I bring others along, philosophically?

It's easy to explain a kanban system.  But how to bring others along to grasp the criticality of a pull system?  That's a different level of conversation.

That's what I'm learning.  I less sure just how to write about it; thus not so many posts here in recent months.

But, man, am I still learning.  And the blogging platform uniquely allows a "parking place" on the web for substantive thinking.  So, I'll keep this alive.

After all, it would be a shame to not try to go for twenty years.

Keep learning.  And thanks for reading.

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