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Celebrating the independence of blogging on the Fourth of July

Nadhan| July 2, 2012

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My blogging career started a year ago on July 6, 2011 when HP Blogger Michele Degani asked me if I would be interested in publishing a blog post on the topic of Applications Transformation being a journey or destination. It was exhilarating to see how quickly I could share my thoughts with the rest of the world in contrast to the time it had taken me in the past to write and publish my formal publications. I experienced a glorious feeling of independence, which seems appropriate as the United States celebrates the Fourth of July this week. This feeling of “blogger” independence allows me to express my thoughts and engage in lively discussions just like I would in any social setting. I was hooked, and I am thoroughly enjoying blogging. So during this moment of celebration, I want to share my experiences as an HP blogger, navigating through my posts and highlighting their nuances as I sit back, relax and study their gradual evolution over the past year.

Applications transformation and applications management were initially 2 of my key areas of focus. Hence the initial posts on:

Shortly thereafter, I took an innovative approach to applications management based upon application personalities (or Applities) like Big Kahuna, Crowd Pleaser, Problem Child, Generalist and the Lone Star. This series of posts led to the Outsourcing Center interviewing me for one of their articles, followed by an extension of this concept to the infrastructure resulting in a follow-on interview and publication.

Perhaps, it is the application of real-life personas to applications that triggered several posts based on various analogies like applications & cars, hybrid clouds & Montreal, compromised scenarios and cloud, moving houses and moving to cloud, NASA and re-hosting, the Mother & the CEO, mother nature and application profiling, enterprise transformation and Las Vegas, enterprise architecture and Dad.

At the same time, I have also done my best to put my own personal twist on current events like The Super Bowl of Applications Performance, My Valentine at Work, Applities @ the Oscars, Applities celebrating their Moms on Mother's Day, college graduation, Father's Day – and now, the fourth of July.

Blogging has also given me the chance to meet and interact with other industry bloggers who I continue to learn from including: Forrester Blogger, Brian Hopkins on Enterprise Architecture and Innovation, Joe McKendrick at 5 signs that SOA has morphed into Cloud, the Winchester House & Architecture analogy on ZDNet, and Outsource Portfolio. I really enjoyed discussing Forrester Analyst Phil Murphy's post on the sublime message from music through the times, as well as applying Forrester Analyst Sarah Epps's post on wearable devices to HP Labs’ flexible displays. One such industry group is The Open Group , an industry standard body for enterprise architecture whether it is done by chance or choice. Starting with my initial post on Impact of Enterprise Architecture on Applications Development with its connection to The Winchester House to what the world saw and did not see about the first technical cloud computing standard that I co-chaired, I have been a regular contributor to The Open Group Blog where my posts on other blogs have been regularly re-posted.

I also took blogging on the road and published live from multiple conferences including HP Master the Cloud in Canada and HP Discover 2012. Conferences open up opportunities for getting together in person for podcasts and video recordings like end-of-day wrap-up (Montreal) and Toronto and end-of-trip wrap-ups. My favorite one of course was dancing with the belle at the ball in Toronto, which made me wonder subsequently about applications performance.

I have interviewed consultants, product vendors, product managers and have also been interviewed on SDRNews.com on profiling applications, the first technical Cloud Computing standard, housing applications and bringing cloud, information analytics and big data together.

I had fun sharing my perspective on keynotes delivered at these conferences: HP Cloud Computing Strategy, Intel, DreamWorks, Taming the IT Lion with speed, delivering on outcomes, turning the tables on computers. And of course I had to share with you information on the sessions I was going to present at HP Discover 2012 -- 1st Cloud standard, Application Personalities which ensured that what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas where I learned how you can rationalize your applications to mobilize your enterprise and how HP made IT matter to me.

As the calendar year started, there was the usual discussion of trends, which triggered a day in the future life of myself, my future grandson as well as the Applications Developer.

Finally, there are multiple areas of focus that have emerged as my key interests over the past year.

Cloud by itself has yielded multiple posts including SOA evolution to Cloud, impact of IT Outsourcing, first Cloud standard and converging cloud solutions. Cloud being a natural evolution of SOA, it was only natural that I got involved with posts on the right way of transforming to the Cloud (Open Group) whether it is for private cloud in the HPES Blog or The Open Group Blog. In my view, how you perceive the cloud depends on who you are including CFOs and CIOs.
The combination of cloud and big data have yielded multiple posts including addressing big data challenges through the cloud, and then being extended both from a cloud and a big data perspective starting with airlines.
Security has received its fair of attention as well in various shapes and forms -- Guess who is responsible for Cloud Security -- YOU! as well as security testing for large and small enterprises

I did not chart out a strategy to publish this many blog posts during the next 12 months when I started. But, I must say I have enjoyed every minute of blogging and intend to continue. And I am grateful to you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you via blogging. Thank you for taking this journey with me so far, and I’m looking forward to another fun year filled with many posts and lively discussions.

How about you? How did you start blogging? What motivates you to blog? What are some of the best practices that have worked for you? Do you Tweet? If so, look me up at @NadhanATHP and let’s discuss some key topics.

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