Just shy of twenty years ago, in November 2004, I started a blog using TypePad soon after returning to university to change my status from a college dropout.1 As I recall it, I was reading Chernow’s biography of Hamilton (Amazon says I purchased it on August 18, 2004) when I came across a passage that Hamilton practiced writing by, well, writing. Interesting, I thought. After spending the prior decade in the tech world, where coding, proposals, and presentations were distinctly different from what I needed now that I was back in school, I explored this new blogging thing.
I wasn’t interested in influence—who was I, after all, and what did I know? It was a place to write, so I set on being anonymous. TypePad said I needed a name for the blog, something I hadn’t thought about. My best running buddy sat beside me at my desk in our Santa Monica home. I looked at her. Ruling out using her name as that would be too personal, I went with her nickname, MountainRunner, since we ran in the Santa Monica Mountains 3-4 times a week.
Fast-forward twenty years, and you’re reading this Substack, which I started two years and a few weeks ago. It’s free to me, at least for now, and it’s free to you and will continue to be. The blog (mountainrunner.us), while free to the reader, is somewhat costly to me. I never had ads on it and never will. I know it continues to be used as a resource by some, and it is cited in government reports, think-tank reports, and books starting within a few years after it was launched. But it’s time to start pondering the future of the blog. So I have questions…
Since I’m asking and hopefully you’re answering, what about enhancing this Substack:
Thanks for giving your input.
Separately, videos of the panels at the Connexions24 conference I attended last week will soon be available on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@UTconnexions. I stopped attending and speaking at conferences many years ago because they just felt like a waste of time, keeping me from my kids. The conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, when Alice asks for directions, provides a fitting narrative of these events. Connexions24 wasn’t that (and not just because we’re now empty nesters). It was informative and useful. The design of the panels went beyond “let’s be better at reacting” to really unpacking problems and laying the pavement toward solutions. While the organizers are still getting the videos packaged, the raw footage of the second panel I was on is available here (jump to 22:50 for the start). I’ll post links when they are available.
Thanks again, this time for reading this far.
I supported myself, including paying school tuition, with my own computer company (programming, network design and installation, hardware sales) in 1992 and left with only a semester left. Though I graduated high school in 1986, my college career was, um, elongated due to two years of water polo and swimming, during which, combined, I earned one semester of academic credits. On the other hand, my wife is a Dartmouth grad with a Kellogg MBA.
Matt, glad to hear Connexions was useful - just want to chime in for the voiceovers. I consume a lot of information via podcast/audio while cooking and driving and the voiceovers have been great for that.
On the other hand, would the podcast option you are envisioning involve guests and the whole kit and kaboodle? That would be excellent too but a rather different product...
Matt, I think that it is important to maintain the the MountainRunner stuff you have written at stable URLs so that it is easier to cite and to track down.