Do you have a hard time finding great content to read? Would you like to help discover undervalued authors?

Join the team…

Darren of ProBlogger sent me a link to check out Chuck Westbrook’s call for help in finding undervalued blogs.

This is a problem we can do something about without too much trouble. Here’s what I’m thinking.

1. Gather some nice bloggers who believe in helping good content rise. The more the merrier. This becomes our group for the project.
2. A good, lesser-known blog is chosen. Everyone in the group will read that blog for two weeks.
3. At the end of the two weeks, the group moves to another blog to read.

If you are looking for great content to read, and wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes each week helping another author, stop by Chuck’s blog. Not only would you help out other authors, but you might just find some really great content to read.

I am excited to announce I have joined the esteemed list of contributing authors at LouisGray.com. Louis runs a wonderful Weblog featuring articles about a wide variety of topics.

You can read the article, here (The World, The Web: Just That Much Smaller).

Louis has built a quality website around offering a platform to generate thoughts and extend conversations. I highly recommend you subscribe to his site, as you will be exposed to wonderful ideas and a host of up and coming authors.

A little about LouisGray.com:

Since 2006, LouisGray.com has been used as a platform to express my personal observations on the world of technology, the Web, and innovation. As a massive consumer of technology, living and participating in the heart of Silicon Valley, I have tried to deliver an unfiltered approach to the day’s trends and tools, one that opens eyes and is my viewpoint alone - not echoing what others have said, but instead, making people think - not just about what technology does today, but where it’s going.

Louis, thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to a continued relationship.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

This is a question I hear a lot, along with a quizzical cocking of the head to one side (much like a puppy might). It is an odd pairing of words to slap together, might be what they are thinking. But what most ask is, “f-o-r-G-e? fohrj - right?”, as if spelling it might suddenly shed a brilliant light upon the meaning of the name I chose.

Folks, it’s an odd name. Say it with me; get it off your chest. Conventional wasn’t what I was driving at…

Max is rather fond of poking at me like I just sat around with a scrabble board mixing and matching words until I found a .com name that was available. That always makes me laugh. But I digress…

As I sift through the voluminous amounts of reading and the endless meandering thoughts I entertain, it was important for me to tell you what ChangeForge is to me - not on some About page, but a little back story on what ChangeForge means to me. While some might debate whether my branding is on-target or off-target, many of you may not have even visited my site, as a large percentage of my readership visits me through e-mail, FeedBurner, and FriendFeed.

A Little Backstory

When I was in the United States Marine Corps, I had a sergeant that taught me a lot about the way things worked. He showed me tips and tricks to succeeding not just in the Corps, but really illuminated some of the finer points about what outlook I should have if I wanted to go farther than just being a “tech”.

One of the things that stuck with me most was what he believed about leaders. He believed leaders would always need advisors to help them understand technology, and there are a choice few who can act as a bridge for them - a choice few who understood what these leaders wanted and could give it to them.

Don’t stand in their way, enable them to succeed and you will be their closest advisors.

Lesson 1: Be a bridge not a gatekeeper.

After leaving the Marine Corps, I worked for a division of a global corporation that relished the “status quo”. When I would ask, “Why?”, I would receive blank stares and comments regarding how it had always been done that way - and not to rock the boat. As you can imagine, I hit that glass ceiling very quickly. I learned that if you don’t change - if you aren’t innovating - you die.

Lesson 2: Change keeps you alive. Embrace it.

Working in my present position and company, as both a technologist and leader, has offered many challenges and rewards. After working in the field of technology for over a decade and with this company for half of those years, I have learned a singularly valuable lesson. I chose my tagline, where business and technology collide, from this lesson:

Lesson 3: Business and technology do not naturally fit… they collide in a graceless dance to which you must give rhythm and harmony.

Change is forged in the fire of business; Technology is my anvil, and I must be the hammer.

So you see, ChangeForge is the culmination of 3 very important life lessons I have learned. As I am a student of life, and of that change that comes as part of life, I relish the thought of sharing ideas with you, my valued readers.

Today is always exciting and the promise of tomorrow looms large in our mind’s eye… To be a student of change can be difficult, but a role those who cherish life choose to embrace. Again, welcome to ChangeForge.com.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

There is a new look at ChangeForge.com. I’ve taken a little time out to freshen the website. You will notice a new color scheme and CSS to hopefully improve some of the contrast on the site and make it a little easier on the eyes. In addition to this, I’ve reworked the masthead logo.

ChangeForge, founded by Ken Stewart, is a blog about the colliding worlds of business and technology. Built upon the premise to offer a clearinghouse of ideas specifically related to workflow and document related technologies, ChangeForge hosts authors from different walks of life and offers brain-fodder on many different fronts including technology, business, and sometimes even politics.

Here, you are welcome to change…

Take a minute, give it a spin, and Let me know what you think.

image courtesy of: Aaron Ovadia

Ken Stewart, creator, author and editor at ChangeForge.com, was recently interviewed by Margaret Rouse, a technical writer and published author at WhatIs.com (among other things). Margaret also publishes a daily piece called Overheard in the Blogosphere. Overheard in the Blogosphere can best be described as…

… an impressionist painting about information technology. Close up, it’s just a cluster of colorful quotes. Take a step back and look at all the posts together — and you begin to see a picture of what’s going on in IT.

An excerpt from the interview reads:

You’ve looked in your crystal ball and have seen the future of enterprise IT. What does it look like?

Enterprise IT must learn to be the servant and not the gatekeeper. With demand increase on everyone’s time, IT will align itself to deliver business-enabling technologies. Security will continually become an increasing concern and will most likely be the counter-balance to the enabling technologies. This dynamic will create a very tight road for IT to walk, but businesses will find a way to carry on as they always have either in finding, creating, or doing without this component of the business.

Read the full interview here.

In August, Ken was “tagged” by Margaret from his article: SharePoint 2007: Friend or Foe? - 2 of 4 -.

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 comes in 2 flavors: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). SMB’s will traditionally be able to rapidly deploy WSS and not hassle with expensive licensing in MOSS. However, at certain levels, MOSS offers some higher level functionality that you just can’t beat.

ChangeForge is a very young blog, with a first post date of March 5 of this year. In this short time, I have made many new and friends, been exposed to many new things, and have loved just about every minute of it!

I am looking forward to continually building this site, while learning new ways in which to share these thoughts with the world… and most importantly - connect with others in a meaningful way.

As I review these posts, they represent different facets of what ChangeForge strives to be - a catalyst to affect your paradigm… and have you impact my own.

… here you are welcome to change!

10. Do your document solutions save trees?

9. Apathy: The Culture-Killer

8. Disconnected? … Check!

7. Meet Me at the Intersection of Passion and Process

6. Do you walk the critical path?

5. Culture is the King of Change!

4. SharePoint 2007 Series Conclusion: 6 Takeaways - 4 of 4 -

3. Is IT a gatekeeper or a bridge?

2. The Road To Change

1. Why Do You Write?

I am proud to announce we have launched our new corporate website for Team Kearns, a more web-friendly version than before resting on an open source content management system (CMS), Drupal. I have been working with Corey at Dealer Marketing Systems since early this year (the brains behind MasterTheBusiness.com & CopierCatalog.com - which I highly recommend as a great reads).

He has been both a great mentor on SEO and friend; so I decided to trust him enough to put together my new company website. The press release is posted a press release over at OfficeProductNews.net.

Here is an except.

Kearns Business Solutions is proud to announce the launch of their new website, www.TeamKearns.com.

Several months ago, the company launched the Team Kearns initiative, geared towards communicating the value a team approach brings to outlining and executing their clients’ strategies. This website is another step towards helping Kearns not only communicate their message to clients, but ultimately providing valuable resources to augment their clients’ document strategies.

Read the rest of the press release at OfficeProductNews.net (another one of Corey’s little projects).

I would recommend Corey’s team to anyone. I am exacting in my standards, and Corey’s team was able to thoroughly take this site from concept to reality.

I am pleased to announce we have a new contributing author at ChangeForge, Max Rosenthal. Max is an analyst with Diversified Business Solutions, a BTA member company in San Diego, California. Diversified Business Solutions works with CFO’s of small- to medium-size businesses that are interested in accelerating the time to cash. He encourages your opinions and ideas and can be reached via e-mail or phone at 858.565.2737.

Max is a veteran of the industry, and has published articles in BTA’s Office Technology Magazine. Please read his first post, Are Your Solutions Sales Stalled? We’ve Been Expecting You.

For anyone that is interested in becoming a contributing author at ChangeForge, please feel free to contact me.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

Well, I’m a mommy now! No, I’m not the recipient of a grand new genetic experiment, I’m writing for This Mommy Gig published by Kate Olson. I stumbled across Kate’s blog through Corey, and really enjoyed the content related to family. Being that I have some more family focused opinions to publish from time to time, I thought that would be a more natural format to post in rather than posting through this blog, which focuses on various aspects of business, technology, change, and best practices as it relates to those.

You can visit my first contribution, and check out a few of the other articles if you are interested in some down-to-earth perspectives on balancing life and family.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

As a citizen of the blogosphere, and being technology-minded, I enjoy trying new things. Plurk was one of those new things.

While some may argue it was too weird, some may maintain it was a Twitter knock-off, and some may just not like it - Plurk has a very interesting interface and an even better community.

I first gave Plurk whirl back in early June, and even wrote a little piece comparing its features against that of Twitter, called Twitter = Ego; Plurk = Fun.

So why say goodbye? Well, there are a few reasons.

1. Noise:

I am attempting to cut through the noise, and social outlets like Plurk and Twitter generate an awful lot of that, in my humble opinion. With the amount of information coming at me, I need a very succinct way of pairing back what I don’t need - almost an RSS reader for social media - if you will.

2. Connect:

I am attempting to connect to others, in a meaningful way. While the community in Plurk is wonderful, I would liken it to happy hour at a bar. If you want to unwind and have some interesting conversations - with LOTS of tangents - then Plurk is definitely the place for you.

3. Time:

I want to learn things from others, and I get this when reading others blogs or parsing through my subscriptions in FriendFeed. Plurk was very good at this, as long as I was willing to put in a copious amount of time.

This was not productive for me. I need to invest my time wisely with all of the various priorities in my life. I’m sure each of you, my readers, can relate to this - and make these decisions more and more now as well.

In general, this was not a hard decision to make when I stepped back and analyzed my goals relative to where I am spending my time. There is only a finite amount of time and energy I have, and while each and every community out there is wonderful in its own right, I can only be part of so many.

To the A-Team at Plurk, my hats off for creating something very interesting - but it’s time I said, “good night.”

Watch-out Twitter - you may have to be next…

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.