A minor change to the Next Generation Technologist Blog

Five years and seven months ago (March 2012) the Next Generation Technologist blog had a set of four goals:

• An outlet to educate
• A place to build connections
• A forum to discuss
• A spot where the author can gain experience with web technology

I can say that over this time I’ve met some of the audience I’ve helped with their education (thank you to all who have recognized me and have said something kind), I’ve built connections with wonderful people (not the least of which are bloggers themselves, like Keith Robison and James Hadfield), I’ve had several interesting discussions (but alas not as many as I’d have liked over a blog format, however Twitter has had many interesting – and entertaining – discussions), and have learned firsthand about the intricacies of search and the primacy of ‘new information’ as news and information gets published online.

In October of 2017 these goals won’t change, but there will be posts that have been commissioned by others (i.e. an organization or an individual compensated me to write, but I exercise full editorial control and reflects my own opinion) or posts that have been sponsored by others (i.e. an organization has written a piece and has compensated me to have it appear here, and have agreed that this piece would be of interest to my audience).

(Hat-tip to James Hadfield for the terminology.)

There remains a great number of research problems to solve, and technical solutions to them continue their development apace. There have been a number of interesting technologies appearing, whether new platforms for digital PCR or single-cell analyses; there are always new papers appearing with novel techniques; and there are the sales and marketing challenges which companies large and small face in determining the right problem to solve, and the right technology to solve it.

I’ll be continuing to write about these topics, and feel free to reach out to me directly if there’s anything I can help you with.