Happy Birthday to The Campbell Scoop!

Today marks the 7th anniversary of my first blog post here on The Campbell Scoop!

This makes this blog a particularly long-lived one, to be sure, but it could've been even older; I was advising clients to start blogs for a year before I had started mine!

Interestingly, while the Internet evolves at breakneck pace, blogs themselves haven't changed all that much in the 7 years I've been blogging.  The advent of Facebook and Twitter (which is officially referred to as a "microblogging site") have usurped some of its thunder as an instant updater of your "status" and your current thinking, but blogs remain popular, powerful, and unchanged in format.  In fact, nowadays Facebook and Twitter often drive the blog, much like a headline drives a news story.  One thing that has changed?  Nobody refers to them as "web-blogs" anymore.  

Blogs remain a great way for people to share their personal thoughts and interests on any and all topics, and businesses continue to use blogs as a supplement to, or even a replacement for, their web sites.  Blogs allow businesses to get personal about what they do, publish and distribute news (like a press release), and they help boost your search engine optimization, too.

If you're interested in starting your own blog for your business, let us know and we'll be glad to help you get started.  There are many questions you'll need to answer, and often what's right for one blog might not be ideal for another.  For example:

• Where should I host my blog?
• What should the URL be? 
• Should I use Blogger, WordPress, or something else?
• How often should I post?
• What sort of tone should I use, friendly or business-like?  
• How long or short should a blog post be?
• And the biggie:  What should I write about?!

Remember, blogging is easy -- that's part of its charm.  But blogging well?  That's hard.

eCoast is on the Map - Literally!

Check out this great illustration in yesterday's Sunday's Boston Globe!

It appeared on the front page of the Business section... sorry Money & Careers section... along with this great article by the legendary Scott Kirsner. (Thanks Scott!) Big props to illustrator Leo Acadia... It's a fabulous illustration! 

I tweeted it back to the columnist (this is reverse chronological, of course):

buzzonabudget Buzz on a Budget

@ScottKirsner that's ok... As long as Seacoast firms know eCoast tech vendors exist & UNH grads know high-tech jobs are here, we're cool.

»

ScottKirsner Scott Kirsner

@buzzonabudget I think eCoast has been doing pretty well in NH, and maybe MA. But has yet to achieve wider recognition...

»

buzzonabudget Buzz on a Budget

@ScottKirsner Regional tech monikers have gotta be organically grown like @eCoastTech Nice piece SK! And fab illus! yfrog.com/h7arjrnj

It's an interesting exchange, IMO, because SK assumes the goal is to establish a nationally recognized brand. While that would surely be nice, my goal for eCoast all along has been to simply make sure we have local and regional mindshare.  If a local firm is hiring out for a new web site, I sure as hell hope they know there is plenty of talent right here in their backyards; there is simply no need to go to Boston, New York, or San Francisco to get top quality results. And in tandem with that, if UNH grads are looking for jobs in high-tech, I sure hope they know they can stay here to get them; they shouldn've have to commute an hour every day, which adds to fossil fuel dependence, pollution, tax income lost to Massachusetts, and all the negative effects of "brain-drain."

Ineterestingly, the article doesn't mention Portsmouth or eCoast by name anywhere.  So if you have a Google News Alert or news clipping service searching for key words, like I do, you wouldn't have seen this. So yes, there's still something to be said for picking up and perusing the ol' dead tree and getting your fingers a little dirty with good ol' fashioned ink.

Portsmouth High School Sets National Record! 76 Wins in a Row!

If you know me, you know I love baseball. A lot.

And if you know me, you know I love Portsmouth. A lot.

And I love news that brings positive attention to our fair city. A lot.

So this story has got me particularly jazzed: With it's 76th win in a row, Portsmouth High School baseball has set the record for longest high school baseball winning streak in the nation! 

Personal anecdote:
My nephew Geoff plays for Oyster River, and he alerted me to the streak with a Facebook invitation to an event "Beat Portsmouth and End Their Streak." Uh-oh. A quandry. I'm a Portsmouth guy. My stepson is a Portsmouth Clipper -- played a little JV last year. So do I root for Portsmouth or for my nephew?  Luckily,  the game was moved up from its original time and was well underway by the time I got out of work and got over to PHS.  By then, PHS was up 8-0 on Oyster River, and Geoff was already out of the game.  Phew!

PHS won that game, then went on the road.  I started following them on Facebook, so I could get up-to-the-minute scoring updates.

The media attention has been impressive.  Here's a sampling:

The PHS Streak got some play in ESPN Boston blog right along, with Roger Brown reporting: http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/high-school/tag/_/name/portsmouth-n-h

WMUR-TV showed up for the record-setting game at Pembroke: Portsmouth Baseball Sets The Record - Video - WMUR New Hampshire

USA Today did a nice piece on it -- and not just running an AP story, either!

Boston Globe, too, as you'd hope.

What's really neat about it is that it puts NH, and Northeast, baseball in the spotlight.  So much attention is focused on Florida, Texas, and California high school ball--as it should be, because they can play pretty much year round. Here in Portsmouth, we've got precious little ball-playing weather... And this Spring has been one of the worst yet, so this bit of sunshine is most welcome indeed.  Congrats kids!