It’s been 6 months since we launched the blog, and I think its been a great success. Right now, the blog offers practical information about our products and a glimpse behind the scenes at GH. But I still have big goals. I want to bring the spirit of Web 2.0 to our blog.  Web 2.0 is a concept that according to wikipedia is “an architecture of participation where users can contribute website content… Web 2.0 technologies tend to foster innovation…” In the vernacular, it signifies the future of the internet. It means user generated content that can be recognized as authentic, and bleeding edge. 

The General Hydroponics blog was an idea that I developed last year, and I pitched it on my way to Reggae Rising. I’ve always loved using the internet to connect with people and find inspiration, but while Adam, head of sales, and Luc our business consultant were my captive audience in the car last summer, I started talking all about my vision for a GH blog. I wanted to be able to share the excitment of the reggae event with not just the crowd at that concert, but with everyone who was interested in hydro and the hydro culture. It made lots of sense to me that if there was a blog, customers could learn more about GH, and through the interaction with their comments and emails, GH could also learn more about their customers.

I want our users to become Power Users. The internet can allow growers to transcend their locations, letting one grower can learn techniques from another. I think that Power Users have as much to teach each other as we have to teach them. The ways that our blog has integrated Web 2.0 include our contests, our polls, and our comments sections. My goals are to optimize these possibilities. I want to encourage our growers to get online, and to give us their honest feedback. 

Which brings me to the Web 2.0 Expo. O’Reilly Media is known as the world’s best publisher of computer books. And they also have a department that produces conferences. Their most attended conference this year is the Web 2.0 Expo. It is 4 days of reality based workshops, giving attendees the tools to bring the latest technology to their websites. The program is diverse, with subjects ranging from visual story telling, social networking, and search engine optimization. I am here to learn as much as I can, and to share it with you. The conference encourages twittering, blogging, and flickring everything. It’s a playground for alpha geeks, and even the regular folks who want to harness the web to do their bidding. It all happens in San Francisco, and I will be here for the rest of the week. Our Grow GH blog will take a departure from the normal hydro, farm, eco, food-web topics I usually post. Instead, I will be sharing my perspective from the frontier of the internet. 

And, bonus, while I’m here in the city, I’ll be trying to hit up all the great grow shops too.