Another challenging year during which I achieved more than I thought I would.

TYPO3

The Good Docs project

  • Resigned from the Steering Committee.
  • Hung out on the periphery, popping up on Slack and helping out with the Chronologue Working Group.

I hope to be able to devote more time to this project next year.

Events

Speaking and improving my speaking skills

  • Spoke regularly on the Open Strategy Partners podcast: Communicate, Connect, Grow. My favourite episode so far is PAX.
  • Spoke at several conferences and events this year, which was great practice.
  • Spoke on the Developer Advocate Stories podcast. An abysmal failure, and a salutary lesson to speak from the heart ♥ rather than trying to memorise my speaking points. When I inevitably forgot them (two seconds in!!), I went into freefall and no words came at all.
  • Interviewed my colleagues for a podcast episode about Developer Relations, which has not yet aired.
  • Actively researched speaking techniques and vocal skills to improve how I come across on video and audio. Most notably Emmanuella Grace and Chrstine Canters. I read heaps of books, online articles and listened to loads of podcasts.

Firsts

This year I conquered a few things I had never done before:

  • Migrated my blog from WordPress to GitHub Pages. This was both a painful and satisfying process.
  • Social listening and making connections. This is the human side to consuming content online, and being involved in different communities. I felt happy and privileged to be able to connect people and tasks across communities, and share celebrations of success.
  • Twitter and social posting. Suffice it to say, I’m not a natural at this. Tweeting on behalf of Open Strategy Partners, as well as writing Facebook and Linked In posts was a task added to my weekly list. I subscribed to many and various newsletters to find fodder for this task.
  • Evaluated conference proposals for the Write the Docs Australia & India conference. This was an enjoyable process, not diminished by the fact that the conference was cancelled and replaced by a ‘super meetup’. I hope to be able to do this again.

Image credits: Mountain photo by @billelmoula from Pexels