I started writing my first blog posts in July 2008, and did not expect to be doing it still 10 years later, more or less 5 days a week.

I went from Slides that Stick, Sticky Slides, IdeaTransplant, to SlideMagic. In the beginning, I was looking really hard for stuff to write about, and trying to learn from all this experienced bloggers with their clever SEO strategies. After a while, I realised that it is easier (and more interesting) to just write about things that come across my desk everyday in the work I do. The fluffy, SEO-stuffed blogs are no longer here, and I am still going strong.

The whole journey has been really fun, and it built my professional reputation as an independent presentation designer with a very clearly defined micro segment of skills: investor pitches. But it also made me look out for new challenges. I can sustain the current bespoke design shop probably pretty much forever, but growing it is hard with only 1 pair of hands.

Many of of my blog posts now also include me as an audience, eye balling back the sort of posts helps me focus my effort to develop a tool or approach that ends presentation suffering in companies (audiences and writers). The awareness of the problem is now well established (with great help of Garr Reynolds and other early visionaries): people recognise when a presentation is bad. The next step is creating something practical that makes it easier for people to change.

It is a tricky problem to solve. I have seen technology initiatives with super cute user interfaces, extremely fancy visual effects, huge amounts of funding, etc. not succeeding in making a dent in the way corporates create presentations.

I have a few ideas up my sleeve, but they are not fully formed yet. I will continue to try, thank you for following along.

PS. Happy 4th of July for my US readers.