One of the things that I made a conscious effort to do last summer was make a regular effort to post in the forums at SQLServerCentral.com. I'd been neglecting them for a couple years, rarely tracking anything other than the Editorials, Suggestions, and Anything Not SQL forums and putting posts in there. Fortunately we have had a great community that could keep things going.

When we started this site in 2001, Andy, Brian, and I posted every single day, with one of the three of us answering every single post. We had 3 other partners that helped, but they weren't as motivated as the three of us. Often two or more of us would answer posts, disageeing or agreeing, but ensuring that we put out the best advice that we could to the community.

 Over the years, slowly the three of us posted less and less. When I went full-time in 2003, I made a new effort to look for threads that hadn't been answered, but it was sporadic and I didn't track things as well as I should. Sometime in 2005-2006, I noticed the most things were getting answered quickly, and I kind of fell out of the forums. With the sale in 2006, I was somewhat unmotivated to hit the forums hard being unsure of my future and not being an owner.  I did answer more posts to be sure that I was doing an adequate job, but my heart wasn't completely in it.

After my trip to Cambridge in 2007, however, I got excited again, I felt more secure in this position, and I went out with the intention of posting 10 times a day during the week. I got one free one from the editorial, so it was really 9, but I worked hard on that. It's possible that contributed to the MVP award I got this year, but that was really a secondary effect for me. I enjoyed answering questions and it helped me keep in touch with SQL Server.

This year I'm continuing that, but aiming for 300 posts a month. We track the last 30 days contributions on the front page, so I'm always trying to be sure that's over 300 for me. It's a regular effort, almost 7 days a week to keep up, but I've gotten over 400 at times, especially when I'm in a groove. Recently I went to the MVP Summit and it dropped into the 280s for about a week as I struggled to keep up, but now I'm back over 320 and looking to see if I can maintain that for the rest of the year.