It is hard to believe that I have been writing Summation for ten years. 10 years is a LONG time. In fact, I cannot think of any other hobby I've been doing consistently for that long.
I wrote my first Summation (it was originally an email with a random thought that I sent to a few friends) in January 1997 (here's a link to a Feb story and a March story). I basically started it right after graduating from college to ensure my writing skills wouldn't atrophy (they did anyway). A year later, on Feb 8, 1998, I sent out the "Summation Push" which was a little more advanced collection of thoughts -- more of a newsletter that people could subscribe and unsubscribe from. I got the idea for doing a Summation Push from Michael Sippey who I met when we were at Berkeley at the same time (him as an MBA student, me as an engineering undergrad).
When I look back on past Summations, I realize they were REALLY BAD. I mean, horrendous. Who wrote this stuff? Sometimes I don’t recognize my past self. Of course, that makes me really worried that my future self will hate what I'm writing now. Oh well, you can't please everyone.
The original name for Summation came from I column I had in my high school newspaper in 1991. it was my attempt at an editorial. I always loved the name of "Summation" and re-ignited the name 6 years later.
Summation remained a newsletter (grew to about 14,000 subscribers) until Aug 2003 when I finally broke down and embraced this whole blog thing. I got one of the first accounts on Typepad (I still am enjoying my lifetime discount) which has been Summation's home ever since. Good thing too -- as one of my early inspirers of Summation, Mike Sippey, is now VP Product at Six Apart (Typepad's parent company).
