It's been 10 years. Let me introduce myself

My 10-year anniversary of writing this newsletter has come and gone, and I didn’t even realize it until just now. It took me a while to pin down the exact start date. Once I did and re-read those initial newsletters, I realized I forgot to do something all those years ago, something you might expect from a new writer of a twice-weekly newsletter.

Introduce myself.

At the time I was a “senior editor at Network World, covering LAN hardware and network management software from his offices in San Mateo, Calif.” While I was sure of my beat, I wasn’t so sure of the new medium. The newsletter had been around for more than a year, and I figured if I just started writing about the topic – at the time, the newsletter was called “High Speed LANs” – I could get my footing and develop a rhythm without making too much of a fuss. Plus, if it didn’t work out, I could just slip out of the newsletter just as quietly and no one would notice, right?

The first issue was in April 1999, and the topic was QoS. This was followed by issues looking at the instability of early copper Gigabit Ethernet, the advent of policy-based networking and the last gasp of token ring.

The early issues established a pattern I have tried to follow for 10 years, which is to look at a range of current events and trends, and put a little perspective on them in a small space.

Not too long after taking on this newsletter, I took them all on - in the sense that I became the editor for all of Network World’s newsletters. We built quite a list of them, with a host of subject-matter experts. We hit upon a winning formula, one that has many of the same benefits as blogging. The informal, first-person style encouraged interaction with readers, and I can honestly say that the feedback was the most gratifying part of writing and editing newsletters.

These days, I’m in New York, not San Mateo, and I’m responsible for making the most of the content across our site, newsletters included. I still keep current with news related to LANs and WANs. One good thing about this newsletter is that, even though the name has changed a couple of times, the focus is still the same – and it is a core topic for Network World.

Thank you for subscribing and reading and sending me your feedback all these years. I hope that the newsletter continues to be valuable to you for many years to come.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.