In the effort to focus my mind on SOMETHING other than #coronavirus, I had a crazy thought.

Ten years ago — yes, it’s been 10 years — I had a user contributed series of posts on my blog called “8 things you need to know.” The concept was simple — 1) Good quality contributions on some facet of information management 2) I would then post them on my blog as a guest post, and 3) I would socialize the heck out of them.

The effort was far more successful than I ever anticipated. Over the course of three years, I published 214 contributed “8 things” articles. It was great content (admittedly, mostly!), but mainly it was a lot of fun and I got to connect with some really interesting people.

Here are a couple of sample titles from 10 years ago:

8 Reasons SharePoint 2010 Looks Like a True ECM System [Yes, there was a time when people used to ask me whether SharePoint was “real” ECM.]

8 Things the Jersey Shore Taught me About the Future of Document Management [I am afraid to go back and see what this one was all about.]

8 Things to Wear to a Social Media Party [Duh, top hat and tails.]

8 Things that Always Worried you about Legacy Content, But Were Afraid to Ask [Some things just never go away.]

I note for the historical record that Jesse Wilkins (now with AIIM, then at Access Sciences) wrote the very first “8 things” post — 8 Steps You Can Take to Better Manage Your Inbox. [Again, some things just never go away.]

So for anyone interested, let’s do this again! Here are the rules…

• Topic — some facet of information management, AI, intelligent automation

• Humor — allowed and encouraged; life is short

• Tone — don’t be mean and snarky; we’ve got enough on our minds right now

• Length — about 750 words

• Who can play — Anyone, but I will be ruthless about product pimping; make it educational!

• How to submit — email your submissions to johnmancini@contentresults.net or jmancini77@gmail.com.

Let’s see what happens. Stay safe.