Ten Years … and Counting

Posted on: August 20th, 2021 by admin 4 Comments
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Ten years ago, on 15 August 2011, we posted a blog on our website entitled “To screen or not to screen? That is the question!” Little did I realise I was embarking on an odyssey that would take me all over the world, exploring topics on breast imaging. Today marks ten years during which we have published a blog every Friday without skipping a single week! That comes to a grand total of 521 stories, the extra one because in 2016 there were 53 Fridays.

In mid-2011, we contacted Philip van Zyl, who was running a company called Get Social Media, to provide us with guidance on CapeRay’s online marketing strategy, and he recommended a regular blog to draw traffic to our site. The word “blog” is a portmanteau, made up from “web” and “log” and has been in use for 25 years. We decided to employ one of three different themes – thought leadership, a summary of industry news, or company news – for each week’s story.

Our blog has the identical look and feel as our website, thus maintaining the continuity of our brand. The format is deliberately consistent – 400 words, 5 paragraphs plus two or three accompanying images, and can be read in less than five minutes. There are embedded hyperlinks to other sites that open in a separate tab, enabling the reader to explore a topic in greater depth. Over the past decade we have celebrated key successes, including the award of a United States patent, the publication of a breakthrough paper about our dual-modality Aceso system, and securing ISO 13485 certification.

The blogs always appear on a Friday, wherever I am in the world, so there have been a few interesting challenges. On 6 July 2018, my wife Joan and I were on vacation on Fair Isle – a remote island off the east coast of Scotland (seen above left) – and I had to wait for the electricity to be switched on at 7:00 am before my blog on reducing breast density could be posted!

A year later, on 19 July 2019, we were on a cruise with our daughter and her family and had to wait for our boat to dock in Miami before I could connect to the internet and send out my blog about hand-held ultrasound. So, after a decade of blogs, you might well ask: Has it been worth the effort? I would answer “yes,” that I’ve learned a great deal about a range of topics, and I have enjoyed sharing these stories with people around the world.

4 Responses

  1. Ben says:

    I’ve really enjoyed following these blogs for the last 10 years.

  2. Jo Prentice says:

    Congratulations, Kit and CapeRay! Your blogs are always interesting. Thank you!

  3. Having a company email address, I spend a good few moments deleting clutter every Monday morning. I have never found it within myself to delete a “Kit” blog out of hand. They wait for tea time and usually get a bit of attention, often forwarded to colleagues where the subject may be of interest. I believe that the advice you took on Blogging has served the company well and I look forward to another decade of blogs.
    George Christian
    Southern Africa Representative
    Hamamatsu Photonics UK Limited.

  4. Kit Vaughan says:

    Hi Ben, Jo and George

    Many thanks to the three of you for the positive feedback! I have enjoyed writing all these blogs, mostly because I am obliged to read up — and understand! — topics that are new to me.

    All the best

    Kit