Next Communications Turns One

Today marks the one-year blogiversary for the Next Communications blog. Twelve months ago I made the jump to this platform and started this effort to put my thoughts, opinions, and observations down. When I started writing, I really didn't think anyone would care to read my musings nor did I think I'd have any readers beyond my wife, my parents, and perhaps a colleague or two.

To my surprise and personal joy, readership has had a modest amount of growth and some good conversations have evolved both online and offline. This has been great to develop and I look forward to continuing the fun.

Before we start year number two, here's a few things I'd like you to know:

• I wanted to try out blogging so that I could speak intelligently on the subject rather than guessing for an organization or client.
  
  
• This small collection of posts is here to explore facets of communication, the intersection of education, public relations, social media and a bunch of stuff in between.
  
  
• I recently saw on another blog's anniversary post something that I really liked and I want to call your  attention to some of the remarkable writers and professional thought-leaders who provide inspiration and education for me such as (in no particular order) Geoff Livingston, Lauren Vargas, Kami Huyse, APR, Jason Falls, Valeria Maltoni, Beth Harte, David Mullen, Narciso Tovar, Todd Defren, Lauren Fernandez, Terry Morawski, Shane Haggerty, LauraVanHoosier, APR, Linda Jacobson, APR, Arik Hansen, APR, and many other writers that I've found along the way.
  
  
• Most importantly, I want to publicly thank my wonderful wife, Kristen Escovedo and our awesome kids (Little Princess, and Little Man) for putting up with me during these writings.
  
  
• A blog is nothing without it's community. Thank you for reading whether it's via your RSS reader, e-mail subscription, or if you just happened to stop by on accident looking for something more relevant. Whatever brings you here, I appreciate you and I thank you.

To celebrate this blog's anniversary I hope you do two things:

1. If you are on Twitter, go follow @childfund and Help Change Children’s Lives; and 
2. If you have one near you, go to 7-11 and get a free Slurpee.
   (I know, it's random but these two things will do you good.)

Next Communications top posts for the year

• Texas School Districts on Twitter  
• Social Media Tool Review of Radian6 
• Public Relations Roles explained through Baseball Positions 
• Newspapers can compete through collaboration 
• 33 Things every PR person should read 
• Some PR people are like star-belly Sneetches 
• Social Media tools for School PR 
• The Social Web is more important to PR than Social Media Tools