This is the second of a series of articles that reviews where Well House Consultants has been - and where we're going - after 6 years of blogging and some 3000 articles. - "towards the next 3000"

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Six years ... and 3000 posts ... after my first article - where will the next six years, or 3000 posts, take us? Indeed - will there be another 3000 posts?

Yes, there probably will be another 3000 posts although it's possible they'll transform into a different format or engine. To persevere with a blog, there's got to be a reason - it's not the sort of things that I (or most people) would stick to for no cause. The cause may be enjoyment in writing. It may be relaxing. It may be to keep in touch with family and friends. It may be as a building FAQ where questions can be once answered then oft read. It may be as a news feed. It may be as a tool to keep building web site content and prominence. It may be a sales tool. It may be a vanity piece. It may be something to look back at and remember. And ... one of the reasons that I'm still writing "The Horse's Mouth" and doing so with great enthusiasm is that to a greater of lesser extent it's every one of these!

Since its inception, "The Horse's Mouth *has* transformed already. It's moved from a quick jotting each day to a container for fuller articles. I've added graphics, diagrams, scripting, and the odd video has started to appear. The blog is now shared across to my Facebook page, the headline is tweeted on twitter, and there's an indexed archive so that you can look things up subject by subject rather than having to know the date that I wrote about "this or that".

But as new elements get added, they have to be added efficiently, and either we need extra resources to handle them, or something that required the same time investment needs to be retired. And what started off as a few pages on a server that could be easily navigated with a simple menu system and where things would be easy to find becomes something of a data management issue. I referred yesterday to a 20-fold increase in web traffic, and I'll admit that I didn't think beyond a few pages of articles and how they would be managed when I set up the blog.

In 2006, we took over "The Old Manor" to run as accommodation for delegate; it was done to meet a need, but also to provide an element of investment in bricks, site and mortar. And we envisaged it as a ten to fifteen year project, with a financial plan of that length - so we're about a third of the way through now. Of course, we knew that the world, and our world too, would change, and the various plans might need to be changed to suit - but we now have a clearer view forward; some thoughts have, indeed, been given to the timing beyond the project - what might happen. No more than whispers in the wind at the moment, but the whispers are there between Lisa and me. I can't see us, in 20 years time, climbing 3 flights of stairs at home every day, nor can I see myself being up at 6 for breakfast duty, with a day extending to an evening meeting. Come to think of it, mind you, that latter's already changing to give me more time for training, more time for hotel marketing, and more time for family and other interests.

Enough of the generalities ... I'm going to go in in subsequent posts to open the lid on a few plans and thoughts. Some are personal, some are "hotel", some are "training". I'll give few timescales or absolute promises - some are happening already, some will move up and down as ideas, and some will never happen; for every 10 ideas that we get, 9 will fall into the "good idea BUT" bucket, and whilst the ones talked about below didn't get eliminated at the first heats, they're not all guaranteed winners in any final selections.

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Links to other articles in the series
[link] A brief look back
[link] Looking forward in overview - the next 3000
[link] How will course presentation change in coming years?
[link] Course subjects - what does the future hold?
[link] Well House Manor - the next six years
[link] Personal stuff - back and forward six years.
(written 2010-10-16, updated 2010-11-08)

 G900 - Well House Consultants - Miscellany
  [170] MySQL, Java, PHP and Linux - new technical articles - (2005-01-06)
  [201] 0870 telephone numbers - (2005-02-03)
  [333] Do NOT follow links or read attachments in these emails - (2005-06-01)
  [336] Targetted Advertising - (2005-06-05)
  [397] Where now for dial-up providers? - (2005-07-30)
  [636] What is your business latency and potential? - (2006-03-06)
  [1024] Web site - a refresh to improve navigation - (2007-01-07)
  [1038] Know to the police - (2007-01-16)
  [1040] What the customer is looking for - effective training - (2007-01-17)
  [1183] Improving searches - from OR to AND? - (2007-05-11)
  [1867] Domain Renewal Group - (2008-11-02)
  [1898] Every cloud has a silver lining - (2008-11-21)
  [2019] Baby Caleb and Fortune City in your web logs? - (2009-01-31)
  [2144] Looking for a career change - Physician to Web Site Designer - (2009-04-28)
  [2258] Questions I have been asked on answering the phone - (2009-06-26)
  [2534] And now for some posts a bit more technical - (2009-12-12)
  [3315] Friday - Electrician, Food Festival, C++ Course, Rail Group Meeting - (2011-06-03)
  [3612] Help to get online in Melksham - (2012-02-13)
  [3775] Alan Turing - 1912 to 1954 - (2012-06-23)

Back to 2999 - looking back

Previous and next or Horse's mouth home

Forward to How will we present courses over the coming years?

Increment operators for counting - Perl, PHP, C and others
What will we be teaching in six years?
A list of special method and attribute names in Python
How will we present courses over the coming years?
Looking forward - the next 3000
2999 - looking back
Using an exception to initialise a static variable in a Python function / method
3D graphics - web site usage - simple matplotlib and python example
Copying - duplicating data, or just adding a name? Perl and Python compared
A river in Melksham is not just for boaters.