20 Years of Blogging and Coding: Reflections on an Unexpected Journey

This week marks the 20th anniversary of when I first started writing online and published my first blog post. In 2010, I released my first open-source project: an unofficial Fitbit API written in Perl.

At the time, I had no grand vision—just curiosity and a desire to document my thoughts and pursue my passion across a range of topics. Fast forward to today, and I’m both surprised and deeply honored to see how my work has found its way into academia. My writings and open-source projects have been referenced by researchers and featured in books, academic theses, research papers, art exhibits (even before I found my own way into art years later), and research projects across the globe—26 citations and references from universities and organizations across 11 countries.

These contributions have touched on diverse topics, including the Quantified Self, Knowledge Management, Mind Mapping, EEG (Electroencephalography), Sleep Behavior and Monitoring, Wearable Fitness Technology, Information Visualization, and Learning. It’s amazing and humbling to see how these projects have been used in so many different ways, inspiring further research and creative endeavors. Many of these articles and open-source projects were spur-of-the-moment, late-night or weekend tinkerings, while others were multi-year journeys exploring niche areas of tech that fascinated me.

Some of the research projects and published papers include processing EEG data to control prosthetic limbs, improving software development processes through mind mapping, exploring personal knowledge management with my multi-year side project (the Personal Memex), and even an art exhibit visualizing brainwave data.

Although I don’t blog as much these days—most of my writing now happens on social media—I’m still actively creating and sharing open-source projects. It’s incredible to see that the work I started years ago continues to be used and appreciated by others. My hope is that these contributions will keep finding new homes in unexpected places, inspiring and supporting others in their journeys.

To celebrate this milestone, I’ve published a summary and a list of all these cited works on GitHub. So, as I continue to create and share, I encourage others to do the same. Follow your curiosity, embrace your passions, and put your work out there. You never know the lasting impact it could have on people and projects you never imagined!

Github: https://github.com/ericblue/my-cited-works