Precious readers, greetings from the dark night, where I write, jet-lagged, arthritis-nagged, caffiene-jagged — but writing for you, once again, trying to provide insight, information, and ultimately value about this wacky idea of innovation. Please forgive the somewhat naval gazing aspect of this post. The good news for you is over the past year you may have missed some of my more interesting posts and the bullet list below provides some quick links to stuff you might find interesting.

A request for help:

Every year, Innovation Excellence, a premier portal for innovation content, has a popularity contest style “Top 40” Innovation Bloggers of the year listing. I admit, I wish to be on the list. I wasn’t last year and I realized, a bit too late, that it has something to do with driving people to their portal, and a bit less to do with objective statistics. In many statistical categories, I’m already in the top 40. In terms of quality and consistency of content, I’d say, with a great deal of bias, I’m easily Top 10. There is a sort of raw composite ranking which is dynamic, if you look to the right of this post you’ll see where I stand. This ranking is a bit mis-leading because it includes portals that are not individual blogs, like Innovation Excellence and Information Week, and blogs that are not strictly speaking innovation blogs (such as the Futures blogs). If you throw out the ones that really don’t belong in the list, I’m probably top 25.

Is there another Innovation blogger with the voice of an active practitioner (at KILN, an innovation services firm that is innovation how to deliver innovation!) and not just a theorist? There are a few I admit, but just a few. I’m a fan of Paul Hobcraft’s work and also his colleague Jeffrey Phillips. I keep an eye on what Stephen Shapiro writes and also the culture maven, Grant McCracken. There are several other peers I keep an eye on (Jorge Barba, Mike Brown.) I think it’s only fair that I’m acknowledged by my industry, but I need your help to get it.

If you are a frequent reader, could I ask you please to click here and nominate me? The voting comes later between the 18th and December 31st, please stay tuned — I’ll need help there too.

Here’s why I think you might, if you would be so kind, support my Top 40 Innovation blogger campaign. In 2012 on my blog —

• I’ve written 88 posts to date, all related to innovation and the related fields of creativity, trends, self-expression and leadership. I’ll let you judge quality, but in terms of quantity, I’m easily Top 10. This is all original content, unlike many blogs which pump up volume with click through links and guest bloggers.
• My post on creative style was picked up by Smartbrief on Leadership, and was republished by Innovation Excellence (If Steve Jobs Worked for You, You’d Probably Fire Him). This is probably my best post of the year or at least the one that attracted the most attention. It’s an eye opener and it was nearly virally re-tweeted.
• My post on innovation training was also picked up by Smartbrief and was widely read and distributed (Training is Innovation Accelerant) — oddly, while it’s a somewhat obvious insight it’s one that has been routinely overlooked.
• I’m the only Innovation blogger who does his own cartoons — I’ve done 12 this year. Here’s my favorite, How to Avoid Innovation Infarction. Nearly all my graphics are original.
• I’ve done many blogs on specific tools, techniques and innovation frameworks. One of my best is about the concept of conceptual blends or “mash-ups” — Do The Mash, but am also fond of this post about the concept of idea scaffolding — Scaffolding Your Way to Better Ideas. If I don’t say so myself, these are cutting edge techniques, this is high value, free content.
• This year saw me do two blasts of related posts, call them series blogs. One had to do with small business innovation — Guerilla Innovation, and another had to do with a Gonzeaux Innovation Roadtrip — with views of innovation through middle America. Guerilla Innovation is essentially a free online blogged book. That collection of posts is highly useful for a small business innovator or inside a big corporation innovator. Who else has done anything like this in 2012!
• I’ve done a half a dozen book or movie reviews this year with the innovation lens — my fave is — Moneyball is Innovationball
• Nearly all of my posts are of that readable length of between 500 and 700 words — I make an effort to make a point and not pontificate. Shouldn’t this be rewarded?
• My readership varies widely from post to post, but many posts have had over 5,000 hits, and this is without a lot (any) of Google Gerrymandering (search engine optimization)

Alright, I’ll stop with the specifics and the abject begging — but if you go to my blog, browse around in this year’s posts, you’ll find information and insight on a wide variety of innovation topics. So, peeps, give a poor innovation blogger boy a hand willya?