As an economist, I have been trained to see the world through a lens of critical thinking.  As a manure visionary, I have been trained to look beyond traditional monetary values to measure both benefits and costs.  If and when I land a new full-time job, it will be career number 12.  I graduated with my first 4-year degree in 1980.

In the last 44 years, I have learned a lot of fun facts, and honestly, I am having a blast sharing obtuse facets of my journey.

My last career, teaching young minds in a 4-year agribusiness degree at Greenville University was a fascinating study in what could be absorbed.  When invited to build a degree at GU, I told the Founding Dean of the Business School, “I was looking forward to making economics fun.”  Wow. That was not easy.

Then there were my agribusiness students…  They endured a ‘fire hose’ of jargon and spreadsheets as they sat through my classes.  It was humbling that they learned at some point if they could invest in my excursions, they would see things that they could not imagine without them.  We traveled that deeper learning together.

I have spent 40 plus years telling the world important things that often were not well received.  It has always been easier to show the world a new idea than explain the idea before it came to pass.

The year before I left GU, I had the privilege to work with Rob Clark.  Rob is Mr. Tall Family.  He is humble and brilliant and passionate.  His LinkedIn profile identifies with 4 billion views in 4 years.  That is one, 4, with nine zeros behind it, 4,000,000,000.  So in the spirit of a wide-eyed kid, I proudly post my results of blogging the first 257 days of 2024, as 40,000 impressions.

Like everything else in my space, the data is fascinating.  Last week, I posted a chart from 2011 on biofuels.  And in eight days, it rocketed the number 3 most viewed blog piece.   What???

I thought it would be fun to list the Top Ten, Biomass Rules/Mark Jenner blog posts of 2024.  Most of the links point to my website blog, but number 6, 8, and 10, only appeared on LinkedIn.  In descending order of LinkedIn impressions, I am listing the title, number of impressions, and months it took to get to that position.

1. A Quest for U.S. Agribusiness Metrics, 1,785 impressions in 8 months.
2. Bioenergy and the Calculus of Local Markets, 1,374 impressions in 8 months.
3. Turn-of-the-Century Biofuel-to-Fossil Feedstock Dynamics, 1,330 impressions IN 8 DAYS!?!
4. The Fork-in-the-Road Appeared and I Took It, 1,325 impressions in 3 months.
5. U.S Farm Hemp is Reported in 2022, USDA Census of Agriculture, 1,320 impressions. 7 months
6. Biomass Rules! …again! LinkedIn announcement, 1,319 impressions in 3 months.
7. RNG is Pulling Undervalued Leftovers Back into the Economy, 1,131 impressions in 9 months – This is my January 1, 2024 inaugural posts (and one of my favorite posts).
8. Chart of the Day, …or Century? (Oops. Also only on LinkedIn, but still a great chart), 1,019 impressions in 5 months.
9. Making Sense of Retail Food Through Coffee, 994 impressions in 2 WEEKS!  This is fun, because I shared this illustration in every first semester economics class, or 300 or 400 students in 8 years, and in 2 weeks outside the academic environment, I ‘impressed’ nearly 1000 people.
10. Looking Back on the Changing Climate (also only on LinkedIn) ,884 impressions, in 5 months.

It looks like if I was only commenting on someone else’s chart, I did not post it on my Biomass Rules, Bio-blog.  I am still learning.  Like just last week, I realized LinkedIn sets the graphics up for viewing on a portrait view of a phone.  That means most of my charts will be more difficult to read.  Part of the reason the links above point to biomassrules.com.

I love learning and hope I keep cultivating that!  I am having a GREAT TIME sharing a career’s worth of random insights.  I saw a meme on how few people really understand the complexity of our economy.  My mission is to clarify, clarify, clarify.  It is always easier to change the world if everyone is working from the same foundation.

How do I quantify my first 257 days of blogging in 2024?

With 40,000 impressions, I would say it is impressive!

Ha, ha, ha, it is not easy being me!  Thanks for traveling with me.