Retrospective 2008 and Looking Ahead

January 04, 2009

It’s that time again when one year is closed out and we look forward to the next revolution around the sun. 2008 turned out to be an okay year for me for the most part. Several aspects went REALLY well, and others not so much. I thought I’d do a little retrospective on 2008.

Things that went well:

I celebrated my sixth anniversary this year. Six years and my wife still likes me!
I accepted a new role at Strategic Data Systems (SDS) as one of the Microsoft Practice Directors. This has been a great opportunity for me. My primary duty is still working as a consultant with our clients, which means I’m mainly still doing development, which I love.
I joined Twitter after the Central Ohio Day of .NET (CODODN) and was surprised that I actually liked it. I’ve found a wealth of knowledge and contacts through this social network.
We had another great Central Ohio Day of .NET in 2008 (otherwise known as the Cincinnati-Dayton Area Code Camp). We’ve got the ball rolling on 2009 so I’m looking forward to helping organize that.
My professional network has grown tremendously this year. From doing more talks, to being on Twitter, to attending more community events I’ve definitely met a lot of great people this year and made many new contacts.
I was able to get the Cincinnati Software Architecture Group (CinARC) off the ground after nearly two years of just thinking about it. Now we just need to mature the group and help it find it’s way.
The Cincinnati .NET User Group (CINNUG) had an awesome year and I’m proud to be leading it. We picked up a new special interest group (CinARC), held new “Special events” and grew slightly on our monthly attendance. We had our first real elections this year and I was re-elected as Lead Director. I’d really like to see the attendance grown in 2009 and I’m excited about having the new Directors on board with fresh ideas. I’ll miss Nino and Dan keeping me in my place though.
My goal for 2008 was to give 5 presentations and I blew that out of the water! I gave a total of ten technical presentations in 2008 starting with the Dayton .NET Developers Group in January. I was even honored to be selected to speak at the devLINK conference. I already have four presentations scheduled for 2009 including a Michigan Tour in May. If you’d be interested in having me come speak, just let me know. I really enjoy speaking and teaching so I look forward to improving my speaking skills in 2009 and giving more presentations in the new year.
I helped launch nplus1.org, a web source for software architecture. It was really good working with James, Chris and Brian to get this off the ground.

Things that went okay:

My son turned three this year. It takes a LOT of my energy to try to be a good father and I hope I’m doing a good job. I would say being a father is the hardest thing that I do. So far I like being around him more than most kids his age so my wife and I must be doing something correctly.
I have been using the “Getting Things Done” methodology to keep myself organized, but I’ve been slipping by not doing my weekly reviews regularly and hardly ever getting to my monthly reviews. This is listed as going okay because I think I can do a lot better if I can get the reviews worked into my schedule on a more regular basis.
I have read about fifteen books or so over the year, both technical and non-technical. I need to ramp this up a bit and take a page from Brian’s playbook and start doing some audio books during my commute. I’ve been listening to podcasts during that time, but I could be more selective regarding which episodes of the podcasts I listen to and get some books in as well.

Things that need work:

While I’ve focused a great deal on improving my mind I’ve not done much for the soul or the body. My wife says I don’t take enough “me” time. I attended a meditation group to see if I would like it and it turned out to be more than I was looking for. I need to find a happy medium between the spiritual aspects and the ability to quietly have a few minutes of time to clear my mind and refresh myself. Some meditation gurus would say what I’m looking for is impossible as you can not have one without the other. I disagree and will endeavor to seek some way to gain this middle ground. At one time I had the idea of a retreat weekend with no electronics (except my Zune for music). I need to get that planned.
I also was very lacking in taking care of my body this last year. I rarely made it to the gym to exercise and I definitely don’t eat well. This is will be a MAJOR life change for me and will probably be on of the most difficult things I try to improve upon. I’m not overweight, but could stand to loose a few pounds. The biggest benefit I get from the exercise is that when I’m doing it regularly I don’t have back aches as often. So, much like Jeff, I’m going to trying to skip the pizza at the User Group Meetings.
I’ve spent a good deal of my own time doing software community oriented things (which were all things that I enjoyed doing and were listed as “things done well”) and that has cut into time with the family. I have a VERY understanding wife, but I need to dedicate some time to specifically doing things with the family more than I did in 2008. Perhaps schedule a few more weekends to take a short trip or camp out in the back yard in 2009.
I’m over-extending myself too much sometimes. I need to re-learn the word “NO” (outside the usage of it around my 3-year old) and use it.
My blog has suffered greatly. I had high hopes for my .NET Nugget series, but after a year of existence it’s only seen 21 posts. I’d really like to ramp up that series and have at least two a month. If I could just knock a bunch out and schedule them to post later that would be great.

Well, that’s what I can come up with. Looks like I need to work on get more exercise, better time management and start writing more. Something tells me that Retrospective 2009 is going to say I need to get more sleep. I’m sure I’ll come up with other goals that will supersede these, but hey…that’s just staying agile, right?