Just like SpendMatters, I’ve also moved to short-text RSS. I know that this does not involve many of you (since the majority of readers still read this blog the old fashioned way), but I wanted to let you know that my reasons were the same as Jason’s reasons – some third party sites are now sucking in my entire posts, and some with little or no recognition or links to the original source. Please feel free to express your discontent in the comments.

Two Hundred and Forty One Thousand Five Hundred and Thirty Four words later (including the words herein, but excluding the words in comments), or Four Hundred and twelve posts later (not counting guest posts on other blogs), and Sourcing Innovation turns one. Although not a long time, even in net-time, it is significant in blog-time, especially for a blog that posts daily!

It has been a very good year. Growth has exploded from barely two dozen hits a day to over two thousand, and traffic is still, almost linearly, increasing month over month and week over week. (So for all you nibblers out there, now would be a good time to actually bite and put your logo over on the right hand side.)

But the best is yet to come. Even though this blog has covered the full range of the sourcing cycle, from spend analysis through contract and performance management, with a heavy dose of optimization thrown in, addressed the complementary procurement cycle from end to end as well, and discussed a host of timely issues such as X-Cost Country Sourcing, Global Trade and Supply Chain Finance, and the Talent issue, I can guarantee that we’ve only scratched the surface of Sourcing Innovation.

The current version of these rules will always be available through the Comment Rules link on the sidebar under “About Sourcing Innovation”.

The purpose of the comment feature is to allow for a multi-way discussion that can enrich the usefulness of the blog. Comments should add or complement the content being presented, not detract from it or steer the user off on unrelated tangents. Although commenting rules of etiquette should be well understood by now, there are always those that seem to forget. As such, these are the commenting rules of Sourcing Innovation.

1. No spam, where spam is defined as the posting of advertisements, abusive, or unnecessary messages.
   This does not mean that you cannot advertise an article, product, or company in a limited fashion (as I permit in my guest posts), but that you must do so in a tastefully and relevant fashion in a comment that is on the topic of the original post.
2. No churlish or boorish comments, be civil.
   This does not mean that you are not free to point out negatives with ideas, solutions, etc. discussed on the blog, just that you should maintain a decorum of respect while you do.
3. No personal attacks on an individual or a vendor.
   This does not mean that you cannot criticize a company or their product, but, as per the previous rule, it must be done fairly.
4. This also means you cannot attack anyone who posts or guest posts on the blog.
   This does not mean you are not free to disagree with the blogger, including the editor, including a post to the effect that his or her opinions sucks, and that you would not trade a molding loaf of bread for 99% of their outstanding stock, but keep it civil and focus on the issue, not the person.
5. No impersonations. If you want to post anonymously, that’s fine, but don’t break any of the rules.

The editor reserves the right to change or update these rules at any time as well as the right to edit or delete comments if they are determined to be spam, disrespectful, or purely speculative without substantiated evidence or evidence of an honest effort to discover evidence to back them up.

Some of my southern colleagues have indicated that they have been having problems accessing my blog lately.  I myself have had problems at times, since I host on a remote server, but given the nature of the internet, and the bad weather we’ve had around North America lately, brief outages are to be expected for any site without vast financial resources to pay for replication services.

If you ever have trouble with this blog, or another blog, here is a workaround that might help you (especially if its just a routing issue).  Try accessing the blog (be it Sourcing Innovation, Spend Matters, eSourcing Forum, or Supply Excellence, for example) through Technorati or ProcureIQ – since they both pick up our blog posts regularly.

[Remember, this post is from January 20, 2007, and, as such, it should be no surprise that neither Technorati nor ProcureIQ (no longer in existence) pick up these blogs anymore, especially since only this blog and Spend Matters remain from the original Procurement(-related) blogs.]