Today is the 1st anniversary of my celebrating the 10th anniversary of my website launching and my blogging adventure beginning. And what a year this has been. I was reading back over my post last year and reflecting on the list of undertakings I was looking forward to working on, launching or planning for:
- I’m working on a fresh redesign for the website, making it more mobile-centric in function. I will continue to try (at least) to better feed the blog with more varied and frequent postings! – DELAYED
- I’m finally finishing my long term project to visualise Seinfeld, with the extended delay in completing this due to some belated broadening of my ambitions for what the published outputs will look like. More on this soon… – DELIVERED!
- I will be launching my new venture, the video/podcast series ‘Explore/Explain’, with Season 1 coming out in April – DELIVERED!
- I am officially starting my adjunct teaching at UCL, sharing the duty of teaching a Masters-level data visualisation module with the excellent Kyran Dale. I am also exploring similar opportunities with two further UK universities – THE FIRST THING HAPPENED, THE OTHER THINGS MAY NOT
- Alongside my ongoing private gigs, I will be continuing to offer public data visualisation training events around the world, and am looking forward to heading back to Australia and to the USA later in the year, as well as hopefully get out to New Zealand for the first time. Event number 300 is rapidly approaching! – EVENT 300 DID HAPPEN! ALL TRAINING MOVED ONLINE, AND SO THE WORLD CAME TO ME INSTEAD
- Though my plans are very under-developed, I am potentially looking at options for creating an internship position, to provide me with extra support but mainly to give others who may be less fortunate than me a bit of a leg-up careers wise… – DELAYED
- I will also be undertaking many more webinars, conference events, consultancy projects, and article-writing to keep flexing different brain muscles and to try stay as relevant as possible in an ever-growing field full of exceptional talent – THANKFULLY ALL THESE THINGS CONTINUED TO HAPPENED
Looking back, I feel extremely fortunate. To have been able to continue operating most of the things that I’ve always done, albeit in somewhat new ways, is a privilege I don’t take for granted, especially in the context of what so many have gone through personally and professionally.
Professionally speaking, 2021 appears set to be follow a formula that is likely to be more similar to 2020 than 2019. I have a significant number of commercial training commitments coming up and I expect most of this will remain online throughout the year. I cannot wait, though, to get back on the road/in the skies to deliver events in front of real people in real rooms and not just my own.
As I mention above, the big project on my horizon is to belatedly resuscitate plans for the redesign of the website. After just one major design evolution, 7 years ago, and having witnessed the platforms of discourse changing considerably, even in just the last few years, I feel a major rethink may be necessary, as I consider what the purpose of a website is these days.
With this, I also need to acknowledge the shifting impetus of blogging.
My posting frequency has dropped off a cliff edge and yet I have a nagging awareness of the pile of potential postings I could write, and a stubborn ongoing commitment to continue maintaining certain posting series. To-do-listing these tasks is one thing, finding the time and, I must admit, motivation to accomplish them up is another matter. Of all the activities I do, I have certainly found writing (articles, posts, anything) to be the hardest thing to maintain focus over the last year. The permanent stress noise of ALL THE NEWS AND ALL THE EVENTS doesn’t help with this.
I also have questions to ask myself about whether blogging is still necessary. These days I’m again fortunate to have other platforms and channels through which to communicate (podcasts, webinar/talks, training, books) my view on all matters visual. Perhaps I don’t need to keep worrying about the struggle to maintain a blog and recognise it won’t be a shame or a failing to just see a natural evolution.
Anyway, I will find a solution. Watch this space. For now, this is just another post to mark time and a chance, as ever, to thank everyone who continues to support and engage with my work.