This New Year seems like a good time to look back over my own blog postings for 2007 and make some 2008 resolutions.

Of my 140 postings (better than one every third day on average) certain topics sustain my ability to blog:

Professional Speaking and Speechwriting

The National Speakers Association annual meeting, our Northern California Chapter meetings, the Ragan Speechwriters Conference and the Pro-Track meetings all provided material. I find it’s a useful exercise to write a ‘trip report’ on conferences and meetings I attend. The useful thing about a blog is that the material I post is an archive I can easily refer back to.

Resolved: To continue to post about any and all conferences I attend, and to extend the reports by commenting on Toastmaster meetings.

Podcast Interviews

I’ve enjoyed my role as ‘outside broadcast’ correspondent. I moved from using an elaborate high-end digital recorder with external mic to my trusty Olympus hand-held recorder. A recent experiment with Skype convinced me that podcasts recorded from my conversations on Skype have great potential. What I like about podcasting is that there’s no writing. The voice of the person comes through loud and clear. It seems like a good idea to keep the podcasts to around 5 minutes. And I have no interest in sitting down in front of a mic pontificating.

Resolved: To continue to podcast interviews with interesting people I meet at conferences and also to seek out people anywhere in the world I can connect with via Skype.

The Financial Times

My daily read of the FT gives me a host of ideas for blogging. I usually spot three interesting articles for each one I write up as a blog entry. It’s been fun sending some of the FT journalists a note about my blog comments and occasionally getting a kind word in return.

Resolved: To continue to scour the FT for stimulating ideas to comment on.

Deep Issues

Looking back on 2007, I see there was a period in February and March when I was trying to look into ‘deep end’ issues such as Ethnomethodology and examine how it is relevant to public presentation skills. I think this is a grand subject for someone’s PhD thesis, but I could not sustain the interest myself. I did hear from a couple of sociologists who came across my blog because there is relatively little on the web about a subject as obscure as this.

Resolved: Stay away from the deep end.

Politics

Since 2008 is an election year there’s going to be plenty to comment on here. I’ve mostly commented on Immigration and Climate Change. OK, so this is not central to the title of the blog. But how these ‘hot button’ issues are debated and the way people represent (and mis-represent) them is a great case study in communications.

Fun stuff

Since all work and no play makes Ian a dull blogger, I’ve found that fun stuff now and again keeps things fresh.

I’m proud of my review of Bamber Gascoigne’s Timesearch site which resulted in an email of appreciation from Mr. University Challenge himself.

The Rothko paintings in Washington DC left a lasting impression, as did the movie Code 46.

Resolved: Have more fun with my blog.

Guest Postings

Little did I know when I invited Clinton speechwriter Vinca LaFleur to create a guest posting on the State of the Union Speech that this single blog posting would attract more visitors than any other. So thanks, Vinca.

Resolved: Invite other qualified people to create guest postings.

Hewlett-Packard

After ‘flying under the radar’ with my day job at HP, 2007 was the year my blog was listed on hp.com. To date, I’ve only posted a few blog entries specifically about HP, but since executive communications at the company is a rich source of content I could easily expand this. My role supporting Prith Banerjee at HP Labs gives me a ringside seat at a major global R&D organization. Communicating about complex technology is a fascinating challenge.

Resolved: More blog entries about HP’s executives in 2008.