I am not a big blog stats guy… I used to be.  I’d check how many people visited the blog every other hour of the day!  Eventually I realized how much time I wasted doing this!

But one stat I do follow since, at least to me, it’s the most important stat a blogger can track – is the number of people who subscribe to LSS Academy via RSS or email. 

Well, today I noticed that we, together, reached a major milestone – 10,000 subscribers to LSS Academy!  Now, this doesn’t mean 10,000 people visit the blog each day… but it does mean at least 10,000 people gain access to what we put out via email or RSS.

Anyhow, thank you for reading LSS Academy.  I am truly, from the bottom of my heart, humbled by this honor.  

If you are not already subscribed to LSS Academy, and would like to be, you can get on board for free here!  Not sure what RSS is… check this article out to learn more.

My life changed – more than I could have ever imagined – Sunday evening, January 14, 2007.

You see it was on this day that I wrote my first blog article. I remember wondering if anyone would read it?

I actually just re-read that first article and had to chuckle… I mean it wasn’t the most insightful thing I’ve ever written… but, hey, it was a start!

A Brand New World

Well, as it turns out starting LSS Academy opened up a brand new world to me.

First, it’s allowed me to share my thoughts with thousands upon thousands of valued readers across the world. We now have more 9,500 subscribers to LSS Academy. Wow! That, in itself, is truly mind blowing.

Second, I have personally met many new lean and six sigma acquaintances… many of whom I now consider good friends.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

And, third, LSS Academy opened the doors to entrepreneurship in a big way as it connected me with my valued Gemba Academy business partners – Jon Miller of Gemba Panta Rei and Kevin Meyer of Evolving Excellence.

Those following this blog know that we started Gemba Academy in March of 2009. We’ve managed to steadily grow the business by reaching a wide variety of customers ranging from individuals looking to learn more about lean manufacturing to Fortune 100 companies using Gemba Academy to train thousands of employees across multiple facilities.

My Big Announcement

With this all said I’m extremely excited to announce that I’ve now wrapped up all my prior professional obligations. As such, I’m now able to focus 100% of my efforts on expanding both LSS Academy and Gemba Academy.

This means I’ll be far more consistent posting LSS Academy articles. My plan is to release new articles at least 3 times a week while also introducing additional LSS Academy authors in the future.

This also means Gemba Academy courses will be developed at a much faster pace while also allowing me and the Gemba Academy team to interact far more effectively with existing and future customers.

So, since this journey all started here on LSS Academy, I wanted you to be the first to know the news.

LSS Academy Promotion (25% off any Gemba Academy purchase)

Next, and I hate it that this is going to sound like a sales pitch, because everything I’ve written above has indeed come from the bottom of my heart…

But as small token of my deep appreciation for all LSS Academy readers, I want to extend a LSS Academy ONLY promotion for the month of September.

Simply enter the coupon code LSS as shown to the left (click to enlarge) at the checkout process for any Gemba Academy online or DVD product and you’ll receive a 25% discount.  This promotion will run through September 30, 2010.

Thank You

Finally, I want to close with one last thank you. I would have never been able to write this article without your active support of both LSS Academy and Gemba Academy.

Fort Worth, TX – LSS Academy LLC, a leading blog focused on lean, leadership, and six sigma, today announced that it has been acquired by Yahoo, Inc.

With more than 7,000 subscribers, LSS Academy has quickly grown in popularity and reach over the past two years.

This acquisition will be a part of Yahoo’s extension of their soon to be released professional productivity suite of applications aimed at professional’s looking to improve productivity and reduce costs.

“We’re excited to continue the good work the LSS Academy team has started. The productivity niche is extremely popular and the entire Yahoo! Productivity Suite team is anxious to learn and grow along with LSS Academy,” said a senior Yahoo! representative.

“What started as a hobby has grown into something far more than I ever anticipated. I look forward to the coming years as I, along with the Yahoo! Productivity Suite team, continue to build LSS Academy. Our goal is to reach 20,000 subscribers within the next 12 months. With the help of Yahoo I’m confident we’ll achieve this,” said Ron Pereira, founder of LSS Academy LLC.

Ron Pereira will continue to write on LSS Academy while also welcoming several new bloggers to the LSS Academy family.

More details on the future of LSS Academy will be released in the coming weeks. For now, please free to scan through the archives of LSS Academy while challenging yourself as to how you could fall for such an April fools gag as this.  Admit it, I got you.

Over the last year several new lean and six sigma related blogs have appeared.  I follow most of them.   Some I like more than others… which is to be expected I guess.

Anyhow, one of the newer blogs that has definitely caught my attention is Gemba Tales, written by Mark R. Hamel.

Mark is a lean six sigma consultant, as well as author.  He definitely seems to know his stuff and I have learned a lot from him already.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I have enjoyed his blog more than any other over the past month.

With this said, I’d highly encourage you to check out Gemba Tales if you haven’t already while also subscribing to his RSS feed.

I suspect 3,000 to 4,000 people will read this article within the next 24 hours.  Nothing would make me happier than each and every one of you checking out Gemba Tales while also subscribing to their RSS feed.

Also, Mark and I have exchanged some emails and I may have him convinced to do some guest blogging over here at LSS Academy!  Let’s see.

So go on now, get out of here and check out Gemba Tales. But please be sure to come back soon!

I recently wrote about the most read LSS Academy articles in 2009.

Now, in this post, I’d like to share with you the LSS Academy articles that garnered the most comments in 2009.

As you’ll see some of these posts are quite short in nature… but that didn’t stop you from speaking your mind!

To me, the measure of a successful blog is the number of comments it gets.   So, I definitely want to say THANK YOU for reading and most especially for joining in on the conversation.

1. The Spinning Lady (39 comments)
2. Leadership Standard Work (26 comments)
3. Level 5 Leadership (23 comments)
4. Is Pottery Barn Lean? (22 comments)
5. Bathroom Lean (22 comments)
6. Womack’s Lean versus Ohno’s TPS (22 comments)
7. Oh Snap! We Sent Bad Product to Our Customer: Fun with the Hypergeometric Distribution (21 comments)
8. Knowledge and Thinking (18 comments)
9. 7 Ways to Reduce Costs (18 comments)
10. How Do You Measure Success? (17 comments)
11. If Lean Is So Great, Why Is Toyota Struggling? (15 comments)
12. Is Economic Lot Size Dead? (15 comments)
13. You’re Late. What Do you Say? (14 comments)
14. 45 Inches and Sizers (12 comments)
15. I am sorry (12 comments)
16. The Complete Meaning of Shitsuke (12 comments)
17. My New Stand Up Desk (11 comments)
18. Simplicity (11 comments)

According to Google Analytics readers from 177 different countries and/or territories visited LSS Academy in 2009.

That is beyond humbling.

Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine such as thing would be possible when I sat down a few years ago and typed my very first blog post.  All I can say is THANK YOU.

In any event, I thought I would wind the year down by sharing the most read articles on the blog.

Now, to be sure, these are not necessarily the articles with the most comments… or even my favorite articles… but they were the most read (Pageviews in Google Analytics).

1. Let’s Create a Current State Value Stream Map
2. 8 Dimensions of Quality
3. 10 Steps to Creating a FMEA
4. Value Stream Mapping Overview
5. The Pugh Matrix
6. One Piece Flow versus Mass Production
7. Explaining Cp and Cpk
8. Calculating Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY)
9. Let’s Create a Future State Value Stream Map!
10. 7 Practical Ways to Respect People

Again, thank you for taking the time to read and participate in the discussion here at LSS Academy.  I truly appreciate you all.

Update: To see the 18 Most Active LSS Articles in 2009 follow this link.