Millions of people write blogs (web logs). And even more people read them. Some of the very first Web sites on the Internet were blogs. There are blogs for every subject imaginable -business, politics, food, news, medicine, knitting – for many, the lure of self publishing is irresistible. And while blogging may actually be good for one’s health, I want to discuss the Pathology blogs and some interesting things we are doing on the Web.
This blog was launched about four months ago. Since then, it has enjoyed over 43,000 visits from people in 142 countries/territories around the world. There have been over 76,000 page views. Not bad, for a new departmental blog. Pathology has other blogs which support some of our labs, and faculty, our favorite technologies and allows us to communicate directly with patients and families. All these sites are authored by members of the Department of Pathology, and not Web designers.
Our blogs operate on a free, “open source” software platform called WordPress. Anyone can freely download it, use it, modify the code and contribute to its continuing development. WordPress has evolved into a stable, mature platform which is supported by an international community of collaborators. It makes self publishing on the Web easy.
WordPress is very flexible, and can be used for more than just blogging. With a few clicks, it can converted into Learning Management System (LMS) for faculty to manage a course, like BlackBoard. It can act like Twitter, with threaded conversations, a social network (like Facebook) or a message board. The Hopkins Gazette runs on WordPress – a fantastic example of online publishing. The common feature of all these Web applications is the fact that anyone publish their own content without special technical skills.
I’m implementing WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) for several new Pathology Web sites. Once the design is complete and added to WordPress, anyone with the login can upload images, author new pages and manage the Web site’s content – with or without the blog aspect of WordPress.
Screen shot of the WordPress publishing interface
My goal is to empower more people within Pathology to publish MORE information quickly, easily and to reach the widest audience possible. If you are interested in a blog or web site, please contact me.
Jim Doran and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg
Jim Doran
Web Designer/Software Engineer
Department of Pathology
Great post Mr Jim.
“Good things happen when you blog!” =)
Interesting picture of you and Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress! I didn’t know it was one individual who founded that immensely popular blogging platform. Jim, is he from Europe? He looks really young, too.
You have all the connections!
@Renee – Matt actually co-founded WordPress with Mike Little, who is no longer involved in the project. He’s originally from Texas and lives in San Francisco now. They were attempting to improve the typography of another defunct blogging project (b2cafelog), and WordPress grew out of those efforts. Matt has a company called AutoMattic, and most of the core WordPress developers are employees. But, as I mentioned, lots of people contribute to WordPress.
I can’t wait to get our staff website up and running. We really appreciate all that you do to support our endeavors! Thank you so much!
Just starting to learn about blogging. This is actually my first blog comment. It seems like an exciting process. It seems like blogging is almost like self publishing.
Nice blog, you bring up some very good points — very exciting getting the departments to work on their own content.
The CQI Office greatly appreciates your quick work to get updated procedures and other information posted to the department’s website, especially in these final moments of CAP preparation. You live up to your goal “to publish MORE information quickly”. You have been great!! Thanks!