According to the Blog Herald, last July there were approximately 70 million bloggers in the world, and 400,000 in Canada. One can only imagine how many there are today.
So what brings Stormy Lake so late to the party? Perhaps the real question, is who told us about the party, showed us how easy it is to get there, and has been that friend we cling to when we don’t know anyone else.
For us this friend, and our inspiration, is Joseph Thornley. Joe is one of those people who sits quietly in a group, but when he speaks the room stops to listen. He is a passionate advocate for the role of social media, and he makes it both interesting and uncomplicated. Can’t ask for much more than that.
A couple of weeks ago, Joe gave a seminar to Alberta Education that was an hands-on introduction to social media. It was not a lecture or even a workshop, but a lab session. We set up delicious accounts, and signed up to twitter. And he took us onto WordPress and posted a blog right in front of us, with a photo of the group.
Perhaps the ground-shifting moment came for me when I was playing around with twitter. I have been a Lance Armstrong fan since he won his first Tour de France. I watched his press conference, live on the Internet, when he announced his return to competitive racing. Twitter showed that he was tweeting, so I signed up to follow Lance. His latest post was written on his bike in the middle of a race in the Tour Down Under!
A short while later, this post came up on my screen:
Knock on the door just now – anti doping control.
Stormy Lake Consulting 
Thank you for the kind words Philip. I’ve subscribed to your blog and I’m looking forward to being part of your online community.