For the past three years I’ve been doing a sort of annual letter to shareholders/call for sponsorships a la Warren Buffet’s Sage of Omaha act, roughly around March-April. I am about two months late this year. I am just going to start calling this my annual letter from now on. I plan to make it approximately 5% more magisterially smarmy every year until people start calling me the Sage of Ribbonfarm (the name of a short-lived gag panel that I experimented with in 2008. I had to give it up because Yurij, my off-oDesk Russian artist, suddenly dropped out of sight. I sincerely hope Putin didn’t do something to him).
So if you consider yourself even a minor shareholder in ribbonfarm (through comments, guest posts, sharing, recommendations, playing couchsurfing host to me on my travels, sponsorships or whatever you’ve been doing to help keep this show going), this letter is for you.
Each year, I also add one line to my evolving business philosophy. In 2011, the line was go where the wild thoughts are. In 2012, it was go deep, young man. In 2013, the line is grow branches and roots. Continuing with the arboreal theme from previous years, this year, my line is practice artistic forestry. That’s the first topic on the agenda. Here’s the rest of the agenda.
- Practicing artistic forestry
- The state of the forest, in numbers
- The Web, it is a-changing
- Bitcoin and online publishing
- The future of longform
Let’s get started.