Wrapping with my final posts of the #vDM30in30 challenge, I have been having some fun tying together two of the core topics that I have been writing with some regularity about over the last 30 days - the DataGravity Discovery Series & the vDM30in30 community. Yesterday we started to explore the demographics of all of the blog posts by using DataGravity's File Analytics, Search, and Trending features. By simply saving these posts to a native SMB file share on DataGravity I now have the ability to search, understand and visualize patterns on the 388 posts contributed over the month of November. Let's continue to explore.
CONTRIBUTING BLOGGERS
There were a total of 16 active bloggers, 10 of which started on Nov. 1 and the latest one joining the party on Nov. 10 and still going strong. Collectively the most posts per day occurred at the beginning and end of the challenge presumably with late entries trying to catchup, and then bloggers trying to meet the 'deadline' towards the end. Rob Nelson's began posting on Nov. 6th, and he came out of the gate running with 4 posts on his first day of the challenge.
File size distribution shows that there were a few short and quick posts, but that the majority had a good amount of substance. The larger posts contained larger media files, mostly coming from food reviews.
Looking at the Metadata
Taking a look at the amount of metadata tags identified across all posts, we can see that most posts contained URLs and that a number included both IP and email information. There were no instances of Social Security Numbers or Credit Card Numbers displayed in any of these posts, so all bloggers were 100% compliant.
Taking a look a little further into those posts that included email addresses, we can see that in fact it is time for John Price's mom to change her password.
Writing Patterns & Hitting the Wall
Taking a look at the trending for when posts were created over time, it is interesting to take a glimpse into the different approaches used for producing the 30 posts. Some liked to do a post a day while others like to write several posts in a burst. Perhaps that is because that is when the creativity is strongest or that is simply when time would allow. During the last day of the challenge 18 posts were submitted and 89 were submitted within the last week. Many of the bloggers in their final posts talked about hitting the wall, and how mentally challenging it was to have 30 meaningful posts worth of material over a short time. Below are the trends, by each blogger of post activity.
Nice and Steady - this group shelled out a consistent number of posts every day for the entire 30 days. Bloggers: Melissa, Eric, Anthony, Dean, Gabe
Bursts of Energy - this group maintained a consistent set of posts per day, but on several occasions had one or two more in them. Bloggers: Sean, James
Peaks & Valleys - this group took a few days off here and there, but made up for it by issuing multiple posts in between. My kids would love this style of posting as it looks like a pretty awesome ride. Bloggers: John, Rob, Mike
Two a Days - this group consistently would publish at least two posts a day. Bloggers: Gina
Fast Starts & Finishes - this group had a nice set of posts in the beginning and end of the challenge. Bloggers: Tommy, Angelo
Sprints - this group had a strong sprint in the beginning. Bloggers: Abhilash, Manny
Beast Mode - this group raised the bar and was able to produce twice the amount of content originally set out by the challenge. Bloggers: Jonathan
Despite a lot of people having hit the wall and in some cases bouncing off, there was some great content produced and it was a great challenge, and I think many of us are now better as a result of it. I really had a lot of fun producing this content. See you next year.