Borderland

One of the amazing things about blogging, as I’m now about 3 and a half years into this project, is seeing my name listed on other people’s sites. I’m grateful to anyone who cares enough to link back to me, but what is more interesting, is seeing the names of the other blogs and websites that my blog is thrown in with. In some cases, there may be only a few others, and I’m humbled to be one of them. In other cases, there may be many that I also read, and I’m grateful that I wasn’t left out. In the beginning of this blog’s life, as you can see from my earliest posts I had no particular focus, hadn’t even read any other blogs, in fact, and didn’t have any notion that there was a category of blogs called the edublog – an unfortunate name, I think, since it positions education as something separate from real life, if there even is such a thing.

Belatedly, far too belatedly, I want to thank Stephen Downes for including me in his Not the Edublog Award Winners post. I’ve learned a lot from Stephen, which makes his recognition of my efforts here all the more noteworthy. His How to Be Heard blogging tutorial helped me fine tune Borderland’s mission statement. Every now and then I reread it and refocus my attention on what I am generally trying to do with this site. It’s been bugging me that I never said anything about being one of Stephen’s award winners. Like, thanks. Sometimes I am way too slow off the mark. So…Thank you, Stephen. I am honored to have been included.

And then today, I saw an incoming link, Thanks to Week 124 SOB’s. I braced myself for an attack or some sort from out of the blue, but instead I was pleasantly surprised. It turns out that SOB stands for Successful and Outstanding Blogger, and it comes from Liz Strauss, at The Successful Blog. Liz blogs about “experience and expertise: strategy, product development, and marketing — all connected through relationships.” Her blog reminds me of what Kathy Sierra was doing with her blog before she unfortunately quit publishing. Worthwhile stuff.

But again, what is most interesting to me is seeing who else is listed in Liz’s SOB directory. Some of these are blogging luminaries, and as far as I can tell, there aren’t any others from the edublogger community. Makes me feel special, for sure.

Thanks to all, for your thoughtful attention. I’ll try to make it worth your while.