Here’s to jumping into the Internet like it’s 1999 and starting a blog! I do realize that I am a little late to the blog party. But, I’ve arrived, and I’m going to try to make the most of it.

By training, vocation, and passion, I am an evaluator. I love data, and I love what data can do for people. Data tell the stories that can change . . . well, everything. The trick is knowing how to coax the stories out of the raw materials and then how to use those stories to enlighten and inform and bring about improvement. Evaluators tend to have lots of different opinions about the purposes of and uses for evaluation, but at its heart (or at least in mine), evaluation is about enlightenment.

Posts here will be about evaluation, data use, data visualization (an emerging interest for me), and so on. They may also be about education, which is currently the field in which I do my evaluation work and the field in which I was raised (teachers’ kids, represent). And, given that I am a proud West Virginian and strongly-identified Appalachian, I might occasionally post about my state and my region and my culture.

My hope for this blog is that I can (a) actually keep it relatively fresh and updated and (b) use it to share with and learn from you. My hope for you, reader-friend, is that you’ll (a) read through the posts (and maybe comment? please?) and (b) click off your browser at the end of the day a little more knowledgeable about–and in love with–evaluation and data. (And, perhaps, my beloved Mountain State!)