Acknowledgements

Personal Acknowledgements

First and foremost I want to thank my wife, Dr. June-Ann Greeley, PhD., an accomplished medieval scholar and an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Sacred Heart University who has shown so much loving patience with her 21st century husband's interests. I am very proud of her own abilities and have come to appreciate deeply through her insights how much human values are a constant through the centuries. This book would not have been possible without our many years of sharing our views of the world with one another. In relation to Content Nation I also want to thank June-Ann for introducing me to a pile of books many Christmas holidays ago that included The Cluetrain Manifesto , a book by Chris Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger whose insights were life-changing for me in 2000 and which are still altogether profound today. When I said as such to David Weinberger many years later I don't think that he got the life-changing part of that equation, but I am sure that he has heard it many times from other people of a more youthful bent. My thanks also to our wonderful son Christopher, who has shown patience with his father's pursuits and who is now learning to blog himself.

A special thanks goes out to my parents, Jill and John K. Blossom, who have demonstrated their own loving patience with their still-growing son through the years and who enabled me in my early years to explore the world and to allow me to explore my sometimes eclectic interests with remarkable patience. My father's knowledge of the English language always challenged me to excel that one step further in my own writing efforts. My father's father, John E. Blossom, was a contributing author to textbooks whose royalties helped put me through college and upon whose typewriter I wrote my college and post-graduate papers. His memory and his inspiration will be special to me always as an author and as a grandson.  Thanks also to my wife June-Ann's parents, Fred and Mary Greeley, who have encouraged June-Ann and I as a couple and as parents through the years.

Collegial Acknowledgements

I must also thank the people who have been a part of my company Shore Communications Inc., which has provided consulting and research services to publishers and content technology companies for many years. To the many people who have served as team members at Shore and for all of our customers who we have helped through the years, my deep thanks for being the springboard for this effort at creating new forms of valuable communication.

David Meerman Scott has been a friend of mine for many years and his guidance and mentorship have been a key component in my professional success. Thanks very much, David, and thanks for convincing me that I should have the courage to take on this project and for offering me such valuable insights and encouragment along the way.

My thanks also to the people at the Softwareand Information Industry Association and American Business Media, as well as Information Today, Inc. , organizations that have introduced me to so many fine colleagues who have contributed to my insights into the content industry and who have helped to foster my career. 

Thanks also to Robin Good (also known as Luigi Canali DeRossi), the founder and editor of Robin Good,  whose personal and professional support have been an essential part of my outlook and whose global outlook on social media is truly inspiring.

Finally, on a personal and collegial level, my thanks to Reid Conrad of Near-Time, Inc. , whose technology, insights and support inspired me to move forward with this project. My hats are off to all of you, and to everyone else in Content Nation who are working to make the  world an exciting place to live in through the fostering of social media.

Contributor Acknowledgements

There are some people who responded to my call for Content Nation contributions, and I wanted to thank them here for their willingness to be a citizen of Content Nation as it has come to life:

• Peter Bihr, Online Media Strategist
• Barry Graubart, Vice President, Product Strategy & Business Development for Alacra, Inc.
• Michael Levy, a Product Marketing Manager for OneSource
• Rand Schulman, Chief Marketing Officer, InsideView, Inc.