5 Years of Blogging... Almost Nothing Worthwhile is Easy

Almost nothing worthwhile is easy, and it’s hard to just jump in and be good at something difficult right off the bat…

The only reliable way to succeed at anything is to actually do it, repeatedly, with concentrated effort. True for individuals, and true for organizations. Athletes, artists, businesses.

—John Gruber in Cutting That Cord

As of today, I have been blogging on BIM and technologies for 5 years which began at Archin3D.blogspot.com and now this squarespace site.  It is definitely not easy keeping up with writing between family and work but it is worthwhile for all the relationships I developed over these years.  I started blogging after having utilized Steve Stafford's blog to help get through the struggles I faced learning Revit through self teaching and trial + error.  This was at Revit release 7 when there were not as many web resources as there are today so I started blogging because I wanted to help those like me.

As times have changed, so has my blogging with the topics evolving as I have grown in knowledge, experience and interests.  I want to thank everyone who reads, comments and emails on what I write as it makes everything I do that much more enjoyable.  I always look forward to having you challenge my opinions, supporting those opinions or just asking questions that have stumped you or others.  It amazes me how technology has created so many friendships and helps continue friendships made at conferences and events.  I look forward to the next 5 years of sharing with you and learning from you.

Just as this blog's focus has changed over the years, after this week it will take a slightly different path and I hope you all come along for the ride as it will definitely be an interesting one.

Will it be relevant to what you do?  Definitely

Keep tuned for what this change is later in the week.

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tagged Blogging | in Technology

BIM, Revit, Architecture and Business Topics by Jason Grant

top posts from 2010

Looking back on 2010, these are the top 5 topics that I posted in case you missed it.

Number 5 is the Stair Planning family that was created based off a complex math based stair to show the potential of triangles during Autodesk University 2010. Check out the post to get your copy of the family.

Revit Stair Planning Family from Jason Grant on Vimeo.

Number 4 is the solution that we struggled over with a license issue that was occurring with the Revit 2011 install.

Number 3 is the article on "Super Families" which I plan on expanding on more in the 2011 year.

Number 2 is the survey on how much BIM support different firms employ and how it differs by firm type and size. There have been a few individuals who have told me that this had assisted their effort to get more BIM support for their offices. Let me know if you saw a benefit also from this report. I really enjoy hearing from my readers.

Number 1 with over 2,600 hits is the sheets creator add-in for Revit that I started creating based on an Autodesk University 2009 session I presented. This utility helps one create sheets within Revit much more quickly and with significantly less clicks. I plan on continuing this further as well as other apps in the 2011 year.

Sheet Creator 2011.2 Demo from Jason Grant on Vimeo.

Thanks to the following other bloggers with the top 5 referrals to this site which helps to get the word out to others:  Steve Stafford with RevitOpEd, Jeffery Pinheiro with The Revit Kid, Gregory Arkin with Revit3D, Peter McCarthy with Revit-Detail and David Duarte with Revit Beginners.

I hope you enjoyed following this site as much as I enjoy sharing with the world. Thanks for a great 2010 and let's toast to 2011.

FEEDS, SUBSCRIPTIONS, COMMENTS OHH MY!!!

I apologize to some readers for the surprise emails you just started to receive again.  I stepped back yesterday to take a critical look at this site and how it is setup.  I realized a few things that I should have realized sooner:

1. The email feed has not been working for quite a while since I made a little change to the blog feed.  I know what caused it but I don’t really know when it stopped working but I promise to make sure it does not happen again.

2. Many people use Google Reader and I did not have a simple way for them to add it.  Therefore, I added a new RSS feed button on the left menu that automatically (through Google) allows you to add the feed to your Google Reader or Google Homepage.  If there is anything else I can do to help you as a reader, please let me know.

I’m not blogging to have the top readership or the most posts per year.  I like to share information that I think is relevant and that I think people want to know about.  If you want to follow the site thought, I want to make it easy on you.  Leave me a comment or send an email if there is something that I can do to make your viewing easier or topics that you would like covered.

Make your Revit Blog or Site password free...

Many people need to read the book entitled "Free" by Chris Anderson or follow Seth Godin's Blog or Books.

I don't know how many times I have seen a link on twitter, linkedin or a blog post with an interesting Revit topic.  I click on it only to find out the site needs you to fill out membership info.  To sign up you need to add a lot of information, read the funky twisted letters that I never get right the first time and then you have to wait for an email so you can confirm that you actually use the email you entered.  Finally, I get into the site only to find the headline of the article more interesting than the article itself.

If you don't intend to charge anyone for your site anyway, don't give me a hassle trying to access it since I probably will not come back after all the difficultly.  You can revel in the membership numbers of your site but the daily readership will most likely be low.  If you don't have stat tracking, get Google analytics and check out your visitor loyalty... I bet it is really low.  If you don't have an RSS feed that I can access without any additional information, I will not read what you put time and effort into preparing.

There are more than 100 blogs on BIM/Revit/Business/Design that I follow... too bad you make it too difficult to follow yours.