We had projected that this blog, From Bob’s Cluttered Desk, would see it’s 6,000,000th reader sometime around November 4, 2019. That milestone came a few days earlier than originally anticipated. As part of the 20th anniversary of this website, we decided to run a contest to mark the approaching achievement for this 8-year-old blog. We built a special tracking system to identify and celebrate reader number 6,000,000. We have been very curious to see who it would be.
And now we know.
At 9:59AM on Saturday, October 26, 2019, Phyllis Phillips of Williston, VT visited my blog, and was notified by the website that she was the 6 millionth person to do so. We are pleased to announce that she will soon be the proud owner of a new Apple iPad Pro.
Ironically, I know the ever deserving yet exceedingly humble Ms. Phillips, at least through email communications. She is an attorney with whom I have been coordinating a panel for a seminar in the spring. The session will be part of the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers Symposium, held in conjunction with the ABA Mid-Winter Conference in New Orleans. The topic is based on a recent Hot Seat Webinar we conducted and will be discussing delays in treatment for compensable workers’ compensation claims.
And now we’ll have something else to talk about, albeit briefly.
We don’t want people to confuse the number to mean that “From Bob’s Cluttered Desk” has had 6,000,000 separate and unique visitors. It is instead representative of how many times articles have been accessed in this blog since its inception 8 years ago. For instance, I may just have 10 unique readers who have each read the blog 600,000 times. That seems far more likely.
I would also like to take a moment to thank one of our developers, Marty Gworek. He was tasked with building a system that could track each visit and determine when the notification page should be displayed. He had to develop a method to display the notification page once, and only once, as well as capture the base information around that specific access. He also had to provide a claim form that the winner could submit to verify their winning status. It worked quite well and as intended.
So, congratulations to Phyllis Phillips. You’re a winner in my book and this blog. You’ll always be number 6 Million to me – although that somehow seems to lose something in translation.
And of course, I thank all of you who take the time to read and comment on this blog. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.