A Letter to ‘Surfers : The State of the Blog …

A while ago I got an email from a colleague across the pond (the one leading down to the southern hemisphere), a Mr. Martin Gill.

If you have followed Circuit Surfers, you will remember Martin as the Australian pediatric perfusionist that did an extraordinary series of posts in the form of a “Live Blog” of last summer’s ANZP conference in Sydney, Australia.

Anyway he contacted me regarding a separate matter, but in the process I solicited a response from him regarding the growth and development of Circuit Surfers.

“Martin, I equally wish to solicit your honest opinion. This last few months I feel the blog has taken an upward turn and matured to the vision I had for it. How do you feel? It seems cleaner, and more consistent in terms of content.

Let me know 🙂

Frank”

His response is as follows. I ask for this input because I get so little of it. I know roughly 500 people visit the site daily, but very few people comment, so if anything- that is the only area of the blog that I wish was more up to speed.

I absolutely encourage any comments and advice- in order to improve and develop better content. Any dialogue is better than no dialogue- as long as it is constructive 🙂

Please submit your thoughts and/or opinions in the comments section of the post you are addressing, or directly to me at [email protected].

Hi Frank

Anyway, with regards to your question re circuit surfers- I have personally always enjoyed the web site since I first found it via your early posts on permail/ perflist. I have also enjoyed watching the site grow.

For me it serves many purposes. One such purpose is as an educational resource- in particular I am thinking of the fantastic material posted by such people as Gary Grist and Steve Sutton.

Secondly I find it very valuable to watch developing trends from your side of the pond such as equipment based questions and trends, as well as the recent drug shortages etc. I have only admiration for the way you manage to find the time to get on top of these subjects and find the time to put together well thought out and research based reply’s/ presentations.

Thirdly I enjoy the postings from the ‘perfusionist in the street’ (if you know what I mean)- the regular guys experience- this always strikes a chord.

If I am honest (which I do have a habit of being) I initially thought the photo thing was a great idea and enjoyed immensely looking at the submitted material.

This enjoyment then turned to a slight concern as it, for a time, appeared that that was all people were submitting, and I guess I missed that excitement of seeing a surfers post in my inbox only to find it was ‘another photo’.

I am inclined to agree with you though; of late the balance seems to be getting just about right. I feel the quality of posts is great and are coming through at a reasonable rate, and these are interspersed with a good amount of the photos.

As I am sure you would, I would enjoy more of the power point presentations from eminent international perfusionists, but hey- when they do come they are always worth the wait.

I hope this is helpful/ useful- of course this is just my opinion (for what that’s worth).

Cheers for now

Martin.