Today I was contacted by a social media marketing firm working for a major MDDS vendor with an offer to contribute content that's on topic for this site (that last part is important). I'm interested, and I imagine a lot of this blog's readers will be too. As I will likely take them up on their offer, I want everyone to understand that there's not any favoritism that plays into who gets to post on this site. So, the following describes the ground rules, the benefits of contributing, and issues an open invitation to contribute posts.

We've been fortunate to have a number of terrific contributing authors over the years, and some of them have written posts that continue to be popular to this day. On the About This Site page is a long standing open invitation to anyone who wants to climb up on the soap box and spout off contribute to the conversation about medical device connectivity. I've also made contributing author offers personally to many folks on both the provider and vendor sides of the table. There are so many people who have incredible knowledge and experience to share. And most of these people don't have the time or inclination to create their own blog. Now you have an outlet.

Increasingly companies are adopting social media policies that establish ground rules for employees posting to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Besides benefiting your employer, contributing posts also benefits the writer personally with increased awareness and respect among your peers. Contributors also get an author's bio like this one for current contributor, William Hyman:

William Hyman is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University. He recently retired and has moved to New York City where he continues his professional activities.

Writers that want to remain anonymous can do so, to a degree. You can be anonymous like the blogger Tim at HIStalk. He doesn't disclose his identity on his site, but he is not legally anonymous. This means that you can chose to not disclose who you are (or your employer), but if I'm legally compelled to disclose your identity I will. Some employers will appreciate this kind of anonymity because there's little chance the writer's opinions will be associated with the employer. Of course many employers, especially the smart ones, will want that employee-employer association to be known so that all the insight and intelligence the contributor demonstrates in their posts will rub off on them!

In the connectivity segment of the market, there are a lot of new entrants and many established companies flying under the radar of broad market awareness. Contributing blog posts about your experience or perspective (nothing too commercial please) is a great way to establish credibility and get the word out. The most effective use of blogging is engaging in a long term conversation with your readers. Most of my consulting business comes from this blog, in addition to the usual word of mouth and repeat projects. You put your content out in the blog, and readers come back with questions and requests for help with problems, advice, referrals to fill new positions, you name it. And I can't tell you how rewarding it is to meet people at customer sites or events who are readers of this blog.

Unlike a magazine article, press release or white paper, contributing to a blog is typically not a one shot deal. A series of blog posts that address a body of topics or frames an issue gets read when it's published - and after that - via search engine queries (that's why it's important to identify and use the right key words in your blog posts). Ideally, potential contributors will look at this as an extended conversation, or at least a series of posts that will span several months, if not indefinitely. Individual contributions are welcome, but they will have to be particularly thought provoking, entertaining and/or informative.

Why contribute posts to this site? Well, the site gets about 300 unique visits per day (less on weekends) and has  hundreds of subscribers to the RSS feed (the funny orange square icon on the right). Readership is evenly split between providers and manufacturers. As a contributor you will get access to the sites statistics where you can see how many times your post is accessed and by who (or at least their IP address or domain name).

So, if you're interested in contributing, let me know. And if you're a reader, here's your chance to leave some feedback - what would you like to read more or less of on this site?

As an aside, if you're interested in the blogs and news sites that I read, keep an eye on the Connectologist's Shared Items box in the right hand bar. This is a list of shared items from my Google Reader. If you've got a blog or news site to suggest to me or your fellow readers, leave it in a comment to this post.

[Flickr photo of Selma by Netzanette]