Out on a LIMS ® is Going Away, Soon

The actual web-site and trademark from the “Out on a LIMS ®” blog will be going away within a few days. That is not actually THIS blog.

Out on a LIMS ®: The Blog For People Who Risk Life and LIMS On a Daily Basis

For many years, readers saw this branded blog and recognized it both by its name and its tagline. That is why I trademarked it, in the first place.

For years, when I would show up at one conference or another, people would come up to me with a little smirk on their face and ask me, “Are you Out on a LIMS ®?,” to which I would reply, “Yes, every day!” I would always clarify this to mean that, every day, I “risked life and LIMS.”

Out on a LIMS ®: The Web-site and Trademark

Learning about trademarks, talking to my trademark lawyer, obtaining the trademark, and maintaining it – these were all interesting business skills to learn, at the time. But, let’s face it, once you’ve done something like this, then the challenge is mainly over. Then, you spend your time having to defend your trademark. That’s part of the trademark process. That part is just work – it’s tedious, basically.

Later, when my original webmaster moved-on, I then decided I would maintain both this and my GeoMetrick Enterprises web-sites, myself. That is yet more (uninteresting) work. For a small business, like mine, if we compare working with a webmaster to doing the work myself, which one is less work is something of a discussion.

For example, back when I needed someone to create graphics and design the site, there is no way I should have done that, myself. I made an initial try that was so hideous that all my customers threated to drop me if I didn’t fix it! When more templates and easier options became available, at that point, I could create something that people didn’t hate and could maintain it, myself. Of course, I always had the work of writing all the content. Even in initially hiring a marketing consultant to guide me, I still had to write the content. So, along the way, I still had quite a lot of work to do to keep this all going.

OutOnALims.com Versus GeoMetrick.com

Around a year-and-a-half ago, I decided to combine outonalims.com and geometrick.com. I wanted to minimize my maintenance efforts. Doing that did make maintenance easier for me. In combining the two, my original intention was to maintain the “Out on a LIMS ®” brand within geometrick.com. Completing that effort went on my “to do” list and pretty much stayed there.

While you will see the reference to “Out on a LIMS ®” in a few places on geometrick.com, I did not return to the task of making the brand’s move to a different web-site as complete as I had planned. Instead, the entire effort to combine the two web-sites made me realize that I was just tired of working on all of this. As such, it was probably not the actual seed to my discontent but more like a nail in the coffin of my business with regard to my attitude toward continuing the work it takes to maintain it all.

Saying Goodbye to Out on a LIMS ®

As such, the outonalims.com web-site expires on October 12th, 2020, which is just a few days away. I don’t remember the expiration to the “Out on a LIMS ®” trademark but its somewhere in the future. I no longer need to know the exact date since I don’t intend to keep it around. As such, I’m going to mark the trademark as “discontinued” or whatever the USPTO’s term is for that, but I’m no longer going to defend it, which is one requirement toward maintaining a trademark.

Do I Feel Sad?

Quite a lot of people feel sad at the passing of these blogs. They ask me if I feel sad. Most of the time, I don’t. Most of the time, I feel relieved.

However, in writing this post, I do feel a little sad. More than that, though, I feel a sense of nostalgia. A big part of my life went toward building and maintaining artifacts of my business, such as “Out on a LIMS ®” which is older than just this blog. “Out on a LIMS ®” started as an on-line newsletter, was doubled to be both that AND a blog for a while, as well. Then, when I felt too stretched maintaining both the newsletter and the blog (as well as writing for some of the industry magazines, at the time, plus work with various conferences, etc…), I finally stopped the newsletter.

As I write this, I think of all the people who loved the name, who enjoyed the articles, who learned from it, and some of whom became friends, over the years. Some of those friends are no longer walking this Earth with us, but many of them are still here and still friends. Stopping the blog doesn’t take that away.

With that thought, I feel no remorse in discontinuing the trademark nor do I feel any toward my lack of renewal of the web-site. Instead, I feel thankful for all the opportunities this blog opened up for me, over the years.

Back to Discussing THIS Blog

This actual blog is not yet going away. I know this is a little odd, since I just said the web-site and trademark “Out on a LIMS ®” are being discontinued. In addition, THIS blog actually is the same one, just moved to a new web-site. With that said, THIS blog, here on the GeoMetrick Enterprises web-site will stick around until December 2020, as previously stated.

I am keep these actual posts around for two previously-stated reasons:

1. Write about my final topic. Now, you know it’s the MOMi LIMS/ELN/MES Guide.
2. Give readers a little extra time to read or re-read posts that interest them.